


The Glass Heart

by Geelady



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-15 04:30:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1291402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geelady/pseuds/Geelady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slightly AU (In this universe Irene Adler and Moriarty are dead for sure and the story is set during a time of limbo after Sherlock is back from the dead but before Watson and Mary’s wedding. Duration: several months at least). </p><p> </p><p>Hearts are made of glass,<br/>someone once said.<br/>Careful how you hold them,<br/>or wind you up dead!<br/>(Holmes has a murder case that turns out to be much more than he bargained for, and a heart case that has him whirling but it’s not what you might think).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Glass Heart

By GE Waldo

Rating: Mature.

Pairing: Holmes/OMC (sort of; a bit of non-con) and Holmes/Watson (sort of). While respecting cannon, I've taken this in a bit of a different direction than the series intended. I'm new to the Sherlock world, so forgive if my characterizations might be off a bit. Still learning.

Summary: Slightly AU (In this universe Irene Adler and Moriarty are dead for sure and the story is set during a time of limbo after Sherlock is back from the dead but before Watson and Mary's wedding. Duration: several months at least).

Hearts are made of glass, 

someone once said. 

Careful how you hold them, 

or wind you up dead! 

(Holmes has a murder case that turns out to be much more than he bargained for, and a heart case that has him whirling but it's not what you might think).

Disclaimer: Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone.

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

"That tumbler..."

Watson noted the locked stare of his associate Sherlock Holmes' eyes and was as ever locked in them himself. Even, perfectly browed, astonishingly intelligent and shockingly beautiful eyes the colour of a spring rain. Eyes in that moment staring unblinkingly on a glass with its amber stain of left-over whisky within. "Yes..?" Watson, despite his partner's effortless ability to infuriate him, was also deeply fascinated by the man. "Sherlock..?"

So heavily taken by the tall slender detective in fact that he still spent an exorbitant amount of time at Sherlock Holmes' flat about which Mary teased unendingly, tossing about airy implications of him having a secret love affair with the good looking brunette. A taunt to which John Watson replied with his habitual scoff chased with an easy and affectionate smile.

For of course he knew he spent far too much time with Sherlock rather than with his intended - Mary. After cases, in between cases, after work, often dropping in for a sniffer of Scotch or a tall, ice-cold beer which Sherlock kept on hand for him in his refrigerator along with an ever changing assortment of non-food items (organic yes but nothing anyone would want to eat); all being Sherlock's' latest experiments starring various cadaver parts in the central role.

"Holmes..?"

But Sherlock Holmes was already off, or his mind was, deep in thought, no doubt organising the facts gathered thus far into a web within his palatial brain, weaving them into the trap that would in good time catch their killer unawares.

John Watson, a square, strongly built blonde; a good looking specimen himself (at least Mary thought so), indulged himself in quiet observation of his flat-mate. Sherlock Holmes, the younger of the Holmes brothers had inherited the looks of "a god" as not a few women (and a good number of men) had stated to him – carefully out of earshot of the object of their admiration. Futile attempts to keep their thoughts secret because Holmes' ears were frightfully keen and the man was fairly adept at reading lips to boot.

Watson frowned over the question. Well then was Sherlock good looking? Watson considered it. By the number of women once introduced and who had then practically swooned in a faint, he had to admit that the man was considered by, well, most of them, to be "gorgeous". But what was it about him that turned half the populace of London into simpering idiots?

Oh the man's mind had to be much of the draw, Watson decided. Sherlock was very intelligent – not just intelligent, no. Sherlock Holmes was on the burning hot sun measure of absolutely brilliant. He regularly put other so-named brilliant men and women in their places oft and swiftly enough so as to have caused regular apoplectic eruptions of irritation where-ever he went and so in addition to those who swooned most also hated him straight away. Yes, that was the mental and emotional - if Sherlock had an emotional side - of him. Watson was certain Holmes did possess an emotional side. Knew in fact that he did, but it was a side of himself the detective loathed to admit to or discuss other than to scorn and dismiss it outright whenever it came up in conversation.

But the physical side of his friend was what Watson was now contemplating. Sherlock was tall, but not so tall as to stand out in a crowd. He was a few millimeters shy of six foot but he seemed taller, particularly when he was busy dressing someone down good and proper. His thick, wavy head of black hair completed the appearance of extra height without there in fact being any. His long, slender face matched well his long slender build. But Sherlock was not skinny. Wiry was a word that comfortably fit. Watson wasn't sure if Sherlock worked out or not but he appeared fit enough, adorned with the smooth, long muscles of a man who was in constant motion in body as well as in mind.

Watson doubted Sherlock slept more than four hours a night and that was when things were going well and the man was not worried about anything in particular (other than solving whatever current case sat before him), and eating regularly. His nose was straight and not too long and his chin neither spaded nor cut off at the jowls - if Sherlock had sported jowls of any description which he did not.

When unhurried by crime Sherlock kept himself closely shaved and neatly dressed – inevitably in black trousers, white shirt with no tie and his signature long dark coat that gave him the appearance of a bit of an eccentric. Watson smiled wryly to himself. If only they knew.

But was Sherlock good looking? Handsome?

Certainly handsome.

Gorgeous?

Watson felt he was not one to make the determination. Tastes varied widely of course and he liked to think that he, at this time or that, had made a few women swoon. Perhaps he was no Casanova but neither had he been short on weekend dates either, back when he was still dating.

Now he had Mary.

Sherlock didn't have anyone, at least not anyone that he would admit to. To Watson's knowledge he had never dated or asked anyone out to dinner or to a movie. Holmes had offered neither wine nor beer to any visiting female whose eye turned his way and lingered. Watson could recall no incident in which Sherlock spoke about romance or love other than in the analytical sense. The man distained all human emotions labelling them as the weaknesses of common humanity and outright caring was not in his nature, at least not so it was obvious to anyone but his closest companions.

Watson smiled to himself. These were conclusions that did not shake his belief that somewhere deep down the man did have a heart; it was simply of a different sort than most. Even Mycroft admitted to ignorance of his little brother's affections or what his heart might say. Should in a future day someone find the key to it, open it wide and discover its secrets Watson hoped he'd be there to witness it.

"Sherlock."

His friend finally cocked his head, inclining one delicately carved ear his way. Even in the small aspects of the physical man, God had been particular. "Hmm?"

"What about the tumbler?"

"You see it, Watson. Tell me what you observe."

Watson knew this game, and he had become quite adept at it. "I see a whisky glass with the dried remnant of alcohol inside..." He reached to touch it and mid-reach was intercepted by Sherlock holding out one of his many white paper kerchiefs that he kept stuffed in his pockets.

"Caution, John, though I believe the killer would have been wise enough to wear gloves, as Lestrade's team has located no obvious fingerprints yet –which is strange don't you think? The occupant the flat certainly would not wear gloves in his own home and yet thus far the forensics people have only located smudges. Our killer wore gloves and wiped or washed away all other evidence he or she might have left behind. I find that interesting – what would anyone leave behind other than prints or glove smudges? Boot prints? Laughable. Remarkably it has not rained in days so there was no moisture to transfer to the floors or carpet. A scrap of fabric perhaps? None found so far."

He sniffed the air. "And yet cleaning was obviously done very recently to this flat, in the last ten hours I would say, and judging by the slovenly appearance of our victim and the general state of untidiness of the flat it was not the dead man who cleaned, and besides who would scrub a floor but neither tidy the dishes nor the straighten the bed? Still there may be a print lingering here and there most notably on the glass of whisky that our dead tenant poured for himself last night. Use this." Sherlock placed the kerchief within snatching distance of Watson's right hand.

Watson's eyes fell briefly to his friend as his mind caught up sorting out all that had been spoken in one miraculous single breath over the dead man that lay at Sherlock's feet, sprawled on his big stomach, his stained tee-shirt disheveled and his rumpled jeans stretched to the limit across an ample waist.

Watson accepted the kerchief and took the glass up to sniff it, carefully holding it with one finger on its bottom and one gingerly on the glass's edge. "Scotch whisky, drunk last night, as you say. And by the clouding on the inner side, I'd say the glass had been nearly full."

"Or, again to be imprecise, partly empty. It was in fact four-fifths full and what conclusions about the victim to you draw from that?"

"He was an alcoholic, but that's easy enough to see by the broken capillaries on his cheeks and nose suggesting long term alcohol abuse. He was most likely the one who drank the whisky."

"That and thrusting his snout into the food trough too often suggests a man who over-indulged in both on a regular basis. What else?"

Watson turned the glass and then spotted it. "Hmm. A heart, faint now, drawn with a finger when the glass was cold, when it still had condensation on it."

"When there was ice in the glass. When was the last time you doodled a heart Watson?"

He set the glass down. "Can't remember. Probably never."

"Yes because women doodle little hearts on things, especially those in love who doodle them on everything. Was our killer a woman and if so was she in love with the victim or had she been at once time and if she was no longer in love which is of course suggested by his being dead, then why doodle the heart at all?"

One of Lestrade's men, a tall, ocher coloured man with short cropped black hair and brown eyes, came over and picked up the glass with his sterile-gloved hand. "Maybe she was in love with herself? Or in love with killing? Hello, I'm Officer Straite - Rupert Straite. Good to meet you both." He held out his hand for Sherlock to shake. Watson took the offered appendage in his own fingers and shook, saving Sherlock the bother. He probably wouldn't have at any rate. "John Watson and this is Sherlock Holmes."

The man seemed pleased and a tad uncomfortable beneath Sherlock's scrutiny. "You're the consulting detectives. Glad to meet you. I've heard a lot about you Mister Holmes." His slim, muscular build and colouring suggested a Middle Eastern background, at least in part, while his accent Watson was unable to pin down to any region. It was lilting with perhaps a touch of brogue, and yet indeterminate.

"No doubt and what about your previous statement? Serious or making a lame attempt at humour?"

Now the man appeared uncomfortable. "Or, er, never mind, just making conversation."

Watson was curious which put-down Sherlock would decide upon but instead he said "A good question."

Watson now wondered if Sherlock was being sincere or if he was just trying to slip a dab of politeness into his usual acerbic manner, the former a quality which Watson had been attempting to pound into the man since the day they met, with limited success.

With surprising dexterity for such thick fingers the muscle bound fellow tucked the glass away in a zip-locked evidence bag and taped it shut. He nodded to them and walked away, scribbling something on the label.

Watson turned his attention back to his friend. "So you think the killer was a woman. He's older," He said nodding to the victim on the floor, "But he's a big man so it's doubtful she could over-power him. So maybe poison?"

"The lab shall tell us that soon enough."

"So lunch then? There's little else we can here."

Sherlock merely nodded. "I'll meet you at the cafe." But he continued to stare at the soiled carpet, his fingers steeple-ed, his manner suggesting anything but a hungry detective intent on lunch.

Watson turned away and then back. "Sherlock...?"

Sherlock slipped his hand into his coat pocket and joined him, all but leaping from the stiff Chesterfield, his energy coiled and ready to strike. Watson was glad a case had come their way. His friend had been altogether too distracted of late.

Ever since Irene Alder had been killed.

XXX

Watson glanced toward the cafe door when the bell chimed someone's entrance. He was not surprised to see Lestrade enter with two of his police fellows and walk toward them. "Holmes."

Holmes was finishing a cup of freshly brewed tea. One of his two sausage rolls lay undisturbed. Watson reminded himself to be glad that the man had at least eaten one of them. He turned at his name. "Inspector."

Lestrade, a man of little wit but sharp senses (sharp enough to know when to call in Sherlock Holmes to a crime scene), and an untidy mop of salt and pepper hair held out his right palm. "Let's have it."

At Holmes' hesitation Lestrade's hand grew impatient and gestured with a few jerks of his cupped fingers. "You were seen, Sherlock. Come on give-it-up."

Holmes rolled his eyes and retrieved from his pocket whatever Lestrade had come looking for. Watson had expected a small scrap of paper with writing on it, or a women's blouse button or perhaps a monogrammed lapel pin.

Lestrade stared at the object in his hand. "What the blazing hell is this?"

Holmes was as calm as a sail on a windless day. "What does it look like Inspector?"

Lestrade looked at the man cock-eyed. "I bloody well know what it looks like, it's a condom!"

Holmes went back to his tea. "And inside you'll find your evidence. I assure you it has not been contaminated. I use a non-spermicidal brand and it is perfectly sterile."

Lestrade looked a man of temporary indecision. "But it's a...a condom."

Holmes appeared a little confused by the Inspector's reaction. "Yes. And inside is the item you came for. Once your lab tech's fail to find anything would you mind very much returning it to me, it would be most appreciated as I'm sure you'll agree I will achieve far better results retrieving anything from it than your tech's assuming there is anything to retrieve."

"You're...you're bloody incorrigible, Holmes. D'you know that? Bloody. Well. In. Corrigible!"

"Am I?"

Lestrade finally clamped shut his hanging open mouth, curtly nodded and turned away. He snapped a finger to his two fellows who moved passed their tiny table, the second one bringing up the rear, the officer they had met at the dead man's flat.

Watson heard words drift over to them he was sure from the mouth of the second man. "Bloody gorgeous..."

But he wasn't certain. "Okay, I have to ask: why do you use condoms instead of evidence bags?"

"I only use them for the pieces of evidence I personally wish to examine."

"The pieces you thieve from the crime scene, yes."

"As they would be returned, ergo not theft – borrowing."

"But why condoms?"

"They're sterile and they do the job."

"So do plastic bags. Why condoms?" Watson leaned over the table. "Have you met someone?"

"Don't be absurd. Condoms are small and they fit in my pockets easily, that is the why I use them."

Watson wasn't quite sure he believed his friend. "Hmph."

"The very idea that I have met anyone. Of course I've met someone. I've met fourteen someone's today although the dead one did not introduce himself."

"You know I mean a romantic someone."

"Preposterous. I am quite content to remain as I am."

Watson immediately thought of Mary waiting for him, and soon they would be together in what would soon be their shared home. Eventually they would get married and maybe even children would come along. And what would Sherlock do with his life? Probably what he was already doing now. Watson could hardly imagine him doing anything else. Sherlock Holmes becoming a domesticated male going off to work every morning with a bus ticket and a lunch box? That was preposterous.

"So what now?" Watson asked.

"Now we wait for the forensic results. There is little else to do at present."

"We could talk to relatives."

"Lestrade's people can do the door knocking on this one. I suspect it will not be a difficult case."

"So you think a jealous lover or just an angry one?"

Sherlock did not answer directly, merely shook his head a bit. "And what have you and Mary planned for this weekend?"

Watson jumped at the chance to use Sherlock's own game in reverse. "Why don't you tell me detective?"

Seven seconds this time. That's how long it took his friend's sharp eyes to look him over and draw his conclusions which he presented in a single breath. The man's lung capacity must be astounding. He might have been an Olympic swimmer.

"I should say a picnic." Sherlock began and then provided all the details that made listening to the man explain his methods an on-going pleasure and surprise. "Your right thumb is stained with a remnant of mustard and there is a distinct odor of vinegar-ed dressing and sulphur on your breath suggesting you made sandwiches with egg salad before you left home, tasting them as well. On the floor at the side of our table there is a liquor receipt for white wine which you purchased yesterday and which fell out of your pocket when you retrieved your phone. You spoke of the beef wellington you had for dinner and red goes with beef much better than white so I surmise the white is for a different occasion - in this case a picnic.

"You are also wearing your older jeans suggesting you plan to sit on the ground or somewhere equally uncomfortable today. Plus yesterday you were looking up today's weather forecast in the paper. Lastly and not least Mary has texted you twice with possible locations." At Watson's insulted look, "I read upside-down as easily as I do right-side up Watson, as you know."

Watson nodded. Of course the bastard was right. "Picnics are nice. Green trees, sandwiches, wine, kids and dogs running up and down on green grass."

"Biting insects, tasteless fare, screaming babies, the smell of urine soaked diapers in the air and wine that has soured in the sunshine."

Watson then recalled his and Mary's last picnic. Much of what Sherlock had just pointed out was correct. Something always seemed to taint the anticipated good time. But whatever, as long as Mary was there. Suddenly he was irritated with his flat-mate. "Well at least I'm going ahead with my life."

"Your implication is that my life is at a stand-still."

"Of course, not a stand-still, that's not what I meant."

"And by saying "going ahead" that is an implication that you were standing still with me."

Watson suddenly felt a bit of a fool. His life had begun with Sherlock, his new, rejuvenated life. A crazy life, full of twists and danger and risk, and countless days of mind-bending intrigue.

Sherlock almost died once. And he himself injured more than once. No, life had not been at a stand-still. It had been full steam ahead and to hell with the danger. "Sherlock. You gave me a new life when I came back from the war. I really didn't mean it that way."

"If that is an apology I accept it." Sherlock did not look at him when he spoke the second time. "And now your life shall continue with Mary. You are dating her quite regularly."

Watson frowned. "But that doesn't mean that it stops with you. I'll still be around. We'll continue the hunt."

Sherlock looked at him with mild amusement. "With Mary's approval of course."

"Well naturally I'll have to discuss it with her but I see no reason why she would protest. She's met you – she actually likes you, and I'm still my own man."

"Oh?"

"Yes." Watson insisted. "Come on," He flashed his friend a lopsided grin. "You must admit you found her pretty cool."

"She is...agreeable." Sherlock conceded.

Watson sighed. "My god you've never even said that about me so I suppose coming from you that's high praise."

It was Sherlock's turn to frown. "I have said as much."

Watson shook his head.

"Over the years, I've complimented you."

He shook it again with more emphasis.

"From time to time."

Another shake.

"Once?"

"Never." Watson said shrugging his shoulders. He'd come to accept Sherlock's eccentric and intellectually selfish ways, he supposed it had become habit. "Excluding those times I reminded you of my contribution and then you might offer some back-handed comment about my abilities to state the obvious or that my "average brain" spurs yours on to greater heights."

Sherlock paused in his thoughts, at least Watson assumed he paused, it seemed rather unlikely he decided. What was really happening was Sherlock's mind was spinning with their shared history, going over each and every case in a practical instant, searching for evidence to either corroborate or contradict Watson's assertion. "Perhaps you're correct. I shall endeavour to correct my oversight in the future."

"That's all I ask."

Sherlock abandoned his cooling tea with a twist of his lip. Cold tea was abhorrent. "And now we have much to discuss-"

But Watson looked at his watch. "Sorry, we'll have to discuss later, I've got to meet Mary in half an hour." He looked at Sherlock expectantly. "But tomorrow...?"

Sherlock merely nodded. "Fine, go to your picnic of ants and screaming babies, I am sure our killer will oblige us by waiting to kill again until your delicate heart is satiated by love and I mean that in the best possible sense."

"There is no 'best possible' in those words."

"I tried. Tomorrow then?"

He'd tried...Watson frowned but felt no anger. Sherlock was who he was and that was a man who stood alone in a sea of human emotions all slopping all over the place and him as dry as a desert weed, a little frown on his face, numerous questions buzzing around in his mind but loathe to ask them.

Other than to his flat-mate when a private moment presented itself. Human nature was the one discipline out of all in which Sherlock was expert where his brain deserted him. Such a brilliant mind and yet, it sometimes seemed, little else.

Suddenly - "Have you ever had someone Sherlock?" Watson asked, knowing they had gone over this ground here and there, but never in depth, before. "I mean ever?" Rumours abounded that Holmes was, by all definitions, a virgin but he was – what? – twenty-eight years old? Twenty-eight and no one had ever touched him? It seemed impossible.

Sherlock managed to once again not huff at the impertinent question. "We've discussed this before."

"Not really. I discussed, you never gave me a straight answer."

"Yes I did."

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"I am...content with my own company."

"Said to his flat-mate of two years. Still not a straight answer."

Sherlock sighed heavily, rolling his eyes. "If I submit and tell you will you please go off on your horrid picnic and leave me be about it?"

"Agreed but-" Watson raised a finger of warning. "-I want a straight answer and the truth."

Sherlock looked away and back while his right fingers disturbed a crumpled napkin, rendering it down to a wrinkled pulp. "To use your words I did "have someone", but that person has been taken from me."

Watson felt like a fool, of course - Irene Alder. He had not thought Sherlock all that serious about her as a possible partner, but perhaps he had read the situation all wrong? Sherlock had seemed quite taken by her, at least her mind and cunning. He admired those whose intellect nearly equalled his own, and the man spoke such praise about no one save the rarest of individuals. Mycroft and Moriarty to name the two. But Irene had come close to besting him in their little game of crime, hunt and punishment, so ultimately had there been more to it than admiration?

But he supposed the question was moot now. Irene was dead and Sherlock, an intensely private man, was alone in the world once more. "Sorry. I didn't mean to pick at an old wound."

Sherlock stared, his eyes open and honest. He spoke softly, almost kindly. "You didn't. Tomorrow then?"

Watson nodded. "Bright and early."

XXX

They left the cafe' and turned in opposite directions on the pavement, Watson toward the street and a cab, and Sherlock towards 221B and home.

Only neither one made it to their destination as the cab Watson hailed with a wave of his arm changed lanes and approached him picking up speed. Watson just had time to dive out of the way as the black vehicle jumped the pedestrian walk-way and headed straight for the cafe in front of which still stood Sherlock in his long black coat, just taking his first steps down the street and toward home.

When he heard the roaring engine and heard Watson's shout of warning he dove away and tried to roll out of the danger zone.

And he would have made it had the cabbie's front bumper not snagged his coat and whipped him around like a rag doll, dragging him through the cafe window on its insane course, overturning tables and chairs while people screamed as they scrambled to get out of the way. The cab finished its journey in a chaos of smoke and spewing gas by the rear kitchen counter.

In a flurry of limbs, Watson climbed over broken furniture and sprawled bodies, trying to get to his friend. He found Sherlock beneath an over-turned table with broken legs. Watson, ever the doctor, first took his pulse and finding it a bit fast but there, and then he screamed for someone to call for an ambulance.

He sat by his friend as his doctor's experienced hands moved automatically over Sherlock's prone body, checking for obvious breaks or other trauma. There could be broken ribs, a punctured lung, a concussion, perhaps internal bleeding...

He had not directly observed the impact, but only caught a glimpse of Sherlock being dragged inside the broken windows of the cafe', his black coat folding around him like a shroud.

Where was that bloody ambulance?!

XXX

"Watson I assure you I'm fine."

Watson did not release his hold on Sherlock's elbow as he steered him up the stairs of 221B. "Two cracked ribs and a concussion is not "fine". You were bloody well hit by a car yesterday and you're damn lucky I agreed to your release from the hospital."

"I'm injured, not broken. Stop treating me like I'm an invalid."

"Don't push me or I'll make you into a better invalid." Finally they reached the top of the stairs and Misses Hudson was there to greet them. One look at the black and purple bruising on Sherlock's left cheek and she twittered. "Oh you poor dear! Sit down, Sherlock." She fussed with a cushion at his back as Sherlock eased what Watson knew had to be aching bones and muscles into his padded chair by the fire.

Misses Hudson threw Watson a pained and sorrowful look. "Take care of him while I make him some tea." And she went off to do what she saw was her duty to her oddest but longest and most cherished tenant. In her way Misses Hudson had to all intents and purposes adopted them both.

Sherlock stretched out his long legs, trying to ignore the deep ache in his side.

Watson was not fooled for a second. He shook out two of the pills the Hospitalist had prescribed and handed them to Sherlock. "I'll get you some water and if you stuff those down the cushions I'll find out and force them down your throat myself."

Sherlock feigned shock. "You must have been at the top of your class – in Sadism."

Watson opened a faucet and filled a glass. "Just stop talking and rest."

"I don't have time to rest. We have a case."

"Sherlock, I have a gun."

"Which you've never used on me. Nor will you now."

"You're awfully cocky for a man with broken ribs and a bump on his head the size of a boiled egg."

"Bruised ribs, bruised not broken and my head feels..." Sherlock made a motion to stand and got half way to his feet before they gave out and he had to fall back into the chair again. "...fine."

"Cracked ribs Sherlock which is - in the medical community of which I am a significant part and you are not - another way of saying broken."

"Here I sit while a killer goes free. This is outrageous." But he held a fist to his aching head. Watson put the glass into his other hand. "Put the pills in your mouth and drink this."

Sherlock raised eyes full of pain to his doctor friend but still he did not drink. Watson sighed. "Sherlock, please just this once admit to human frailty and take the damn pills. Trust me please, as your doctor, to know better."

He swallowed the pills and drank down the water. Watson watched from the opposite chair as fifteen minutes later the colour began to return to his friend's face. "Better?"

Sherlock answered quietly. "Yes." He seemed sincere.

Watson was gratified to see Sherlock's eyes dropping a bit, though the man was still fighting it. "Do me another favour?"

Sherlock looked across at his friend. "Of course."

"Go to sleep."

Sherlock sighed, finally nodding that to fight against some recuperation time was only delaying his getting well and he acceded. He held out one long fingered hand to his friend. "Would you mind...?"

Watson took it and helped the injured man to his feet, down the hallway and seated him on his unmade bed. Misses Hudson had taken to making it for him almost daily, but the shock of the phone-call from John about Sherlock's injuries had sent her scurrying off to market for heating pads, ointments and the like. "Do you need help...?" Watson gestured as Sherlock began to unbutton his shirt.

"I shall manage to undress myself, thank you John."

John. Watson hated to admit how much it warmed him whenever Sherlock used his first name. "Call me if you need anything."

Unlacing and kicking off his shoes, Sherlock decided to leave his pants on and lay down, easing his aching bones into the softness of his bed. "Yes."

Watson watched him from the door until he could hear from his friend the slower and deeper breaths of slumber. "Anytime."

XXX

Sherlock awoke hours later to the sound of someone in the kitchen, washing dishes and putting them away. He could smell freshly made tea and some concoction of what he assumed was soup that rather turned his stomach. It was Watson playing doctor again.

There was a knock at the door and he heard Watson's soft shoes walk over to answer it. Voices talked in low tones. He heard Watson say something to the effect of "try not to tire him please." and then there were boots that did not belong to Watson coming down the hallway, stopping outside his door.

A head poked itself into the room. "Mister Holmes?"

Within what seemed only a moment Straite returned to the kitchen and said to Watson. "I'm afraid he's drifted off, doctor. At any rate he's got the evidence he wanted. I left by his bedside so I'll be off now. Good day to you."

Watson saw him to the door. "Thank you Officer. Give our regards to Lestrade."

"Certainly I will. And please offer Mister Holmes our warmest wishes for his recovery."

Watson nodded "Of course." and closed the door behind him, turning the lock. No more intrusions for tonight, he decided. Sherlock needed his rest.

XXX

"You must have slept the sleep of the dead." Watson observed as Sherlock entered the kitchen the next morning. His colour was better and was stronger on his feet, even though he still did have one arm protectively wrapped around the left side of his rib cage. "A good rest'll do that."

Sherlock took a seat. "Have you made coffee?"

In answer Watson set a cup down on the tiny kitchen table beside a plate of buttered toast. A small jar of Misses Hudson's preserves sat nearby. "Two cream, no sugar."

Sherlock inhaled the delightful fluid agreeably and took a sip, then grimaced. The meds were making short work of his taste buds and he abandoned the cup regretfully. "Did you not go home last night Watson?"

"Um, this is my home. I haven't been spending that much time over there. We missed our picnic of course but Mary was all right with it. I told her what happened, she's worried."

"You stayed up all night?"

"Yes. I needed to make sure you were going to sleep properly, don't worry I'm fine."

Sherlock shifted in his seat, hissing as shifting was not easing the ache in his side. "It did not occur to me to worry. Now as to the case-"

"Oh, right. Straite came by and left that evidence you wanted back."

Sherlock paused for an instant, but not so small an instant that Watson did not notice it. "You were probably asleep. He left it by your bedside." Watson said by way of explanation.

"Oh, good." Sherlock said. "When was that exactly?"

"Half past ten."

"I'm fairly certain I was not asleep."

Watson pointed a stern finger at the toast. "I checked after you. I'm a doctor, trust me, you were out cold."

Sherlock picked up a crust and nibbled at it. The sudden taste of food suddenly woke up his appetite and he chewed appreciatively. But he declined the fruit spread when Watson pointed it out as well.

"Sunday you shall seek out Lestrade and determine what – if anything – he has coughed up by way of an investigation and I will discover all there is to discover of the evidence again in my possession."

Watson let his scrub brush fall into the soapy water. "It is already tomorrow, Sherlock. You slept through the night. Today is Sunday and I doubt Lestrade will be in. Besides I promised I'd make yesterday up to Mary today. She dropped in with some fresh orange juice for you which, by the way, I expect you to drink."

"But you said Lestrade sent Straite over which means Lestrade is on duty."

"That was last night."

"Oh."

Sherlock appeared a trifle confused and to Watson it was firm confirmation that his friend was in no shape to go traipsing off anywhere. "I think you've lost a day because of that bump on your head."

Sherlock tenderly fingered the bandage wrapped around his scalp. It still stung. And yes the bump was significant. "At least will you fill me in on what was wrong with the cab driver."

"He ran off before the police could question him."

Watson glanced around and saw that his quick explanation was not sufficient to quell his friend's hungry mind. "And no, the cab company does not know who it was. The regular driver was off sick, and their records are sketchy."

"The explanation is simple; the regular cabbie paid an acquaintance to do his shift for him. The regular driver is at home suffering from a twenty-four ounce 'flu. It would be an easy matter to confirm but the cab company's boss is a personal friend of the regular driver and does not wish to fire him. The acquaintance needed the cab money but he was offered something extra by someone unknown to try and run us down and of course this suggests something..." Sherlock prompted.

Watson shook his head. "I imagine it does except you need to put that restless mind on hold for a few days and let the police handle it. The substitute driver was probably drunk, it's a chronic problem among cabbies and that is probably why he ran."

"Perhaps but you fail to see the real reason why the driver tried to run us down -"

"You keep saying tried. This was an accident by a drunk."

"A fairly specific accident, he killed two people but not his target."

"Meaning you?" Watson sat down by his friend, rested his elbows on spread knees and got earnest. "Sherlock, I know you have a keen mind and I know you always think you're right about everything-"

"-because I do and I usually am."

"Yes but you've been in an accident," Watson underlined the word before Sherlock could mount another protest, "and...and you're on pain killers plus you're in shock and before you argue about that with your doctor your body is in physical shock even if you think you aren't, that's why it's called physical shock." Watson saw that his words might be getting through. "If a cab driver was trying to kill you, why do so in such a public place with so unsure a method and thereby leaving the possibility that he could miss? I may not be the world's greatest physician but you are alive right now."

Sherlock thought over his friend's words for a few seconds and when he opened mouth Watson sighed with relief at what came out. "Perhaps...you...may be right."

"Good. Now will you rest?" It would be astounding if the man agreed and if he did then...

"I will if you will brew some coffee."

"No stimulants. Herbal tea?"

"Revolting."

"Then weak hot chocolate."

"Tolerable."

Watson went to make the preparations but kept one eye on his companion who had moved to the sofa, easing his sore body down onto it. Sadly the most rest Sherlock ever seemed to get was when he was injured. Watson shook his head and stirred.

XXX

Watson waited until Sherlock had consumed half his cup of chocolate and was snoring quietly on the sofa and then he slipped out to meet Mary as planned. Just a quick one-two luncheon and back again to 221B. He did not like to leave Sherlock alone for too long, especially not with a head injury, which could be tricky.

The flat was empty. Watson quickly dialed Sherlock's mobile phone and got an answer after two rings. "Watson. Join me."

"Where are you?"

"The mortuary of course."

"Of course...and why-"

"-Good news. Our cab driver was found dead. He did not escape from the crash uninjured and died in an alleyway."

"So his misfortune is your good fortune?"

"Our good fortune. He tried to kill me, justice is served." Sherlock hung up.

Watson hailed a cab.

XXX

Watson recognised Donavon and of course Lestrade as he entered the drab buildings of the city mortuary. A perfectly ordinary looking man lay covered by a sheet on a slab in the center of the room. Donavon was glaring daggers at Sherlock. Nothing new there. Two of Lestrade's people he had not seen before and the one they had met, Straite, was absent. It was a cycle; new people came and went all the time. Lestrade's district was one of high crime.

Watson walked up to Inspector Lestrade as Sherlock was bending over the dead man's face, sniffing. "New people again?"

Lestrade nodded. "Straite and Michaels transferred."

Too bad, Watson thought, Straite had been a particularly nice fellow who hadn't hated Sherlock from the moment he met him and those sort, he glanced over to Donovan, were few and far between.

Watson approached Sherlock who had peeled back the sheet to expose the man Sherlock claimed was his attempted murderer. It was always an education to watch the man work. "Anything?"

Sherlock's brow creased just a little. "You'll have to be more specific John, I have discovered a great deal but nothing that tells me why this man drove his cab onto the sidewalk and nearly over me with perfectly dry roads during a time of day where the sun was at his back. No phone was found in the cab or on his person therefore he either didn't carry one – unlikely – or it was taken off him in the alley before the police showed up."

Watson shrugged. "Or he left it at home."

Sherlock sniffed at the man's breath. "No odor of alcohol or breath mint." He glanced up at Watson standing to his left. "It is possible he left it at home but as I said unlikely as he was working, but we shall know soon enough." Sherlock looked over to Lestrade. "I assume you have Sergeant Donavon or someone competent attending to his flat?"

Lestrade nodded. "'Course. Why do you think this bloke drove into you on purpose anyway?"

Sherlock didn't answer right away and Lestrade rubbed at his salt and pepper hair, appearing a bit uncomfortable. "How's the bump by the way?"

Sherlock appeared confused until he remembered. "It's fine."

Lestrade looked at Watson who shook his head and then addressed his consulting detective again "Sherlock. You don't think it's possible you're just maybe hoping this bloke had it in for you? You've been stuck at home for a week recovering. It would be natural for you to-"

"-To what?" Sherlock asked a bit sharply. "Make things up? Did I make up Moriarty?"

Lestrade looked suitably abashed and studied the dead man's placid mid-forties face that was going over to fat. "Well, whoever this man was, he appears nice enough."

Sherlock straightened up, his examination apparently over and then one last time down at the dead man. "Not anymore."

Sherlock succumbed to Watson's insistence that he return home and rest up. "I'll order in, that ought to perk up your appetite."

XXX

Sherlock watched idly as his flat-mate scurried about putting on a kettle for tea and straightening up here and there. "You may as well tell me, John, you're an appalling liar."

John continued clearing away a week's worth of dirty beakers in the tiny sink. No dishes – which to his doctor's eye confirmed that Sherlock was not eating nearly enough when he wasn't present to nag him into it – but then stopped. "What do you mean?"

"I mean when will you and Mary be moving in together? It must be soon, I estimate within the next two weeks. It explains your nervousness. You want me well before you leave so your physician's conscience will be clear but you're worried that I won't get on without you." He watched John's shoulder rise and fall in a silent sigh. "Rest assured I shall survive."

John turned, his lips pressed together. "I just feel a bit...awkward leaving you when this is all happening."

Sherlock frowned. Of course, the week before nothing had been happening so he recognised Watson's weak excuse for what it was; his friend would feel guilty no matter what the circumstances but he needed to, as most people did, "say something". And although he knew the perfect solution to both their problems it was one he doubted John would go for. John did, after all, own a double bed. Mary could easily fit into their lives as they stood.

Sherlock pointed out the obvious knowing John would interpret it for what it was – words to ease his friend's troubled mind. "I have been alone before you know and I will be fine." A half truth really. He would miss John more than he would say. Plus he had no desire to impede whatever course Watson decided to take his life, he had no right to ask. He had no rights.

Wants however were more frustrating things, not as easily dismissed out of mind. Wants even, on rare occasions, hurt.

Watson nodded his head, satisfied. "You guessed right."

"It wasn't a guess."

"Fine, well I'll give you half month's rent since I'll be leaving two weeks, that'll give you time to find another flat-mate..."

Another? Sherlock blinked. Who could that possible be? No, there would be no others. "John, I-"

The door bell downstairs chimed and Watson slipped from the room, his footsteps lighter on the stairs than they had been in weeks. Sherlock nodded to himself. John would be fine now. Besides if someone was trying to kill him, it would be better for John not to be around so much. Collateral damage of that nature would prove intolerable, he decided. He felt one of those emotions Watson so often talked about and held in such high esteem though not one of the pleasant ones: fear.

Sherlock did not want John stepping in the way as he was want to do and winding up dead himself. He did not want John to die.

In between Watson's stern looks Sherlock ate some of the food Watson placed before him, not really noting what it was or that it was so bland as to be almost tasteless -although that might have been the medications - and contemplated how lonely he had been prior to Watson's entering his life – yes he remembered not actually feeling lonely, not until John had come and filled a painful void that previously he'd had no idea existed – and now that John was leaving he wondered if he'd feel it after. Would the hollow state return? Would his need for Watson linger or dissipate?

"Had enough?" John took his plate and Sherlock watched the elegant doctor's hands, the thin fingers a contrast to the rest of John's body, it the stocky build of a soldier. Sherlock was grateful when a cup of piping hot tea was set before him with all the cream and sugar you could want. Plus biscuits he must have retrieved from Misses Hudson when his patient wasn't paying attention. Sherlock wondered if Mary was going to benefit from John's house-boy ways.

Or would John be the one served and doted over? Sherlock managed to remember to mutter thanks sending a startled look from his friend over his own little cup. "Wow, your head must still be a bit scrambled."

Sherlock felt a wave rush over him, thinking at first that it was just a dizzy spell from his head wound; that perhaps John had been correct on insisting he come home, but the wave was so powerful he had to quickly sip at his tea to cover over his suddenly wildly beating heart. Then he forced his eyes away from his friend's puzzled expression and to the flat which surrounded them with its piles of books and the lab equipment sitting on the kitchen island, much of it still needing cleaning. Then his gaze drifted down the short hallway and to his own bedroom where he regularly retreated to but rarely slept well, and then over to the door that led to stairs that took him to the outside world full of strangers.

And then finally back to his own tea cup with its twin nestled in John's generous fingers across the tiny table, and to John's ever kind face.

John was leaving him.

Sherlock took two deep breathes to steady his nerves. He wondered if his face was whiter than usual because John was now staring, his face lined with worry. "Are you all right?"

Sherlock, his mind in a hundred places at once, finally managed to translate some of what John had said to him. He narrowed his eyes thereby trying to focus is mind to the seemingly insurmountable task at hand of figuring out what John's mouth was saying. But he had only managed to catch two of the words. "Wha-...is this...is this right? I mean...what?"

John left his chair and came around the table, squatting down, peering closely into Sherlock's pale blue eyes. Sherlock could not help but stare back into John's much deeper blue ones. As deep and blue as the ocean under storm clouds, but with the hope of sunshine and calm seas, looking back at him, worried about him, concerned over his health, caring about him.

So terribly caring. So caring it was somehow uncomfortable. At that moment and for a reason Sherlock could not untangle John's normal, everyday eyes - eyes he was used to seeing, eyes he had seen a hundred times a day without really noticing - had twisted Sherlock's insides around until it hurt.

It was suddenly hard to breathe again and Sherlock dropped his eyes to his hands clasped painfully in his lap. His fingers were cramping from the grip and he deliberately made them relax, peeling them apart and letting the blood return. "I have no idea..."

XXX

Part 2 asap

Author's note: Having become fully addicted to this modern Sherlock series, I'm trying my hand at this first Sherlock fanfiction that explores the inner soul of the man; Sherlock may call himself a high functioning sociopath but he is one who still feels all the normal emotions of love, hate, remorse and sorrow. The sorrow (tears) and regret we saw when he was about to take the plunge to his "death". He had to lie to John. Sherlock knew he would miss his friend and that his "death" and, in the end, the deception revealed would hurt John deeply. The tears had to be real because John was too far away to see them and there was no one around for Sherlock to fake them for. IMHO.


	2. Part 2

The Glass Heart Part 2

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSherlock

Thank you for the reviews!...Author

XXXX

It was the same feeling as when Moriarty stood inches from his face and promised to burn him. "I will burn your heart from you." It was the same as when Sherlock then felt the heat of that vow ignite a fire in his chest with the first pain of it hitting him full force and making him stagger like a wounded buck, when Moriarty tilted his chin up and ate a bullet. He understood then as he did now. I will lose John.

Losing Misses Hudson would be awful, yes, terrible, frightful and tragic. Losing Lestrade a painful blow; a true sorrow on London and all it stood for. Losing John...

Losing John would end him.

Better his own end, and so the orchestrated deception of dying had begun with his plunge off that roof as John watched in horror from below.

And now again he was losing John.

No! His thoughts countered, as always weighing the evidence against reason and hypothesis. You're not losing him, he is changing residences, he is having intercourse with a woman, he is moving in with her, he will undoubtedly marry and have a tribe of children with dripping noses but he is not dying. Straighten your head around Sherlock!

Sherlock made a heroic effort to dismiss the fear that had arisen inside him, but he was astounded to discover that it was not his head that argued back. It was something that spoke no words yet seemed to have an unarguable case and used language from a place or an age that was beyond his comprehension. It coursed through his physical body like a raging river, its way set, its power undiminished over the days that followed and so his body froze and his mind shivered and he knew then that he was losing his way. His fight between it and the perfect balance of shore was ill-matched and his strength waning.

He had to be going insane.

Sherlock even briefly flirted with the idea of chasing down a dose of a little something just to rid himself of the nameless fear crushing down on him, if even for a short time. But John's eyes on him every minute now made that difficult at best.

And of course John would have been disappointed in him. He did not want to see John's eyes when they swam with waters of disappointment. It was altogether unsettling and even when his argument was of course the correct one, the sight of a tearing-up John made an awful heaviness overcome him. It was an uncomfortable sensation, one he had experienced at other times during their years together - and one that took a while to dislodge.

So Sherlock feigned much more pain than he was feeling and far more drowsiness than he had ever experienced and took to his room. Anything to be away from the eyes and the concern of a man who was tearing his heart to shreds without lifting a finger in his direction (other than to serve him food and drink and shove pills into hands that he could barely keep from shaking). It – an it Sherlock could neither define nor understand in the least - was accompanied by an avalanche of confounding emotions over which he had no control and in which to stare rendered him blind.

Perfectly awful.

But Watson pounded in the door anyway. "Sherlock. Why have you locked the door?"

Ignoring John's voice was difficult but he gave over to furious thought, thrusting all emotions from his mind. It was, after all, just emotions that were overwhelming him. Emotions were nothing more than chemical reactions in his body. Chemicals can be regulated, made to either flow or stop flowing, at least to some degree. While John pounded on the door he paced in small circles, finding that place in his Mind Palace that would facilitate thinking and thinking alone. A gleaming white place with no borders...empty, blank, without outside reason, without human frailty, without so-called profound meaning – no! Only facts. All he had to do was think about this logically.

Sherlock chuckled to himself. That's all this was after all – emotions taking over, threatening to break down the fortress he had so carefully erected over a lifetime. Years of calm deduction and clear thought. Emotions - nothing but a train for fools. Worry, grief, sorrow, happiness, love...

Logic and reason never hurt this way. Love was a chemical reaction of flesh, a painful one yes he was discovering, but nothing more. Nothing more.

Sherlock felt some calm returning and was infinitely grateful for it. He waited until his heart slowed and his hands stopped shaking, almost all the way to normal, and then he straightened his jacket, unlocked his bedroom door and opened it to find Watson seated on the hallway floor with his back up against the wall, a deeply worried expression on his gentle face.

"John." Excellent. Perfectly me.

Watson, to his credit, did not barrage him with a dozen questions of why and what. He merely looked up and asked "Are you all right?"

Sherlock felt another emotion – relief. He stretched out his hand to his friend who took it and was helped to his feet.

Sherlock lead the way to the sitting room and began a visual hunt for his coat. Slipping into it he once again felt and looked as right as rain. "Shall we?" He asked Watson.

Watson looked at him as though he had gone just a bit mad and Sherlock was not all that convinced his friend would be wrong. But it seemed the doctor had decided to leave that discussion for another time. "Where are we going?"

Sherlock wrapped his scarf around his neck and turned his collar up to the early morning chill. "Thanks to you I am again well and we have a case. I'm doubtful Lestrade's army has come up with something in the way of evidence but let's go and see anyway, shall we?"

XXX

"A week goes by and Lestrade has 'no new leads', not that he possessed even one at the outset. What a wasted meeting." Sherlock turned his collar up at the mid-morning chill.

Watson had to move his legs twice as fast as usual to keep up with Sherlock's impatient stride. "I'm sure they're doing everything they can. What about your evidence, the contents of the ridiculous condom?"

Sherlock indicated a small cafe' and entered. "I suppose it can't hurt to let you have a look at it. Perhaps you have an idea, it's not likely but we're at Lestrade's proverbial 'bottom of the sack' now."

John took up a seat opposite his friend at a table for two by the tiny curtained window. "Thanks very much. Always nice to feel useful."

Sherlock snatched up a menu and perused it carelessly. "Sorry Watson, I've a bump."

John dismissed his friend's irritability and did a one-two visual of the side of Sherlock's head. The bandage was off but the swelling still visible. "Well, at least it's now only a grape instead of an egg. The ego underneath, I am sorry to say, has not diminished in the least."

"Being aware of and accepting and using one's own abilities is not ego; it's logic."

"So what does your logic say about your evidence?"

Sherlock slipped his right hand into his coat pocket to finally hand over the elusive condom and its contents. "See for yourself, you may smell it."

"Smell it?" Pleased to see that Lestrade had had it transferred to a properly marked evidence bag, he looked to see only a small silver coloured square of paper. Curiously he opened the bag and took a sniff. His eyebrows went up. "Cologne."

Sherlock nodded. "Yes a stain of it on a tiny part of an envelope. The envelope is otherwise unremarkable, a cheap letter variety that you could buy in bulk from any stationery market. The cologne is cheaply priced one and, if my nose is not mistaken, probably that French Axe that practically every man on the planet is dousing himself with."

Watson sniffed the air. Sherlock, as was his norm, smelled only of shampoo and soap. He never wore cologne of any description. Watson wondered if a girlfriend might someday alter that. "So you think a man killed our victim?"

Sherlock actually shook his head, perplexed, a rare sight indeed. The waiter came and laid down paper place-mats for each of them and cutlery. Watson ordered eggs with ham with coffee. Sherlock ordered a bagel with cheese and tea. After eating many minutes in silence, Sherlock put down his tea cup and announced "This case might be nothing more than my head bump."

John looked up. This was even rarer; Sherlock admitting that he might be off on a goose chase. "You think perhaps it was just a robbery after all? If so he might have taken something that was valuable other than the man's wallet, a collectable...?"

Sherlock looked out the window. "By the state of the man's flat, that's doubtful but I was referring to the cab driver."

"Oh." Yes. Despite the injuries the accident has wrought on Sherlock, he had actually forgotten about the dead cab driver. That case probably was a wild goose chase. "Perhaps you should sleep on it some more." Watson suggested, feeling a bit useless. His history with the man had born out that Sherlock needed to come to these conclusions on his own.

Sherlock's brow creased, annoyed. "I've been sleeping on it for a week, John, I hardly think another night's slumber is going to produce better ideas that the ones I get while I'm awake and fully lucid."

"But you haven't been fully lucid, have you?" He nodded to his head. "You banged your head up badly. A concussion can do funny things to your mind. Bad concussions have been known to alter or erase memories. I'm sure your instincts are still there. Maybe they're leading you correctly."

"Instincts?" Sherlock shook his head. "How many times do I have to tell you, John? Instinct is simply the mind's way of organising and drawing conclusions based on evidence the eyes have already seen but otherwise not noted as of importance. Most people resort to co-called instinct because they lack the ability for organised thought. I have never solved a case by instinct."

"Fine, fine, but you do admit that instinct plays a part. It must, I've seen those sparks leap to your eyes when some small clue finally hits you in the face."

"Merely previously acquired knowledge falling into its rightful place."

"Plus the swift insight that you're somehow right without being able to explain to me why and then later being proved right. That's instinct."

"Perhaps at times it plays a very small role." Sherlock admitted, "But I assure you my memories are undiminished." Still, he could not see his way through the case of the dead man in the shabby flat. It had to be a robbery, there was little else to suggest otherwise except for the sweet smelling envelope and the glass. But anyone might have drawn that heart, the dead man himself. But cologne on an envelope was odd, especially for a man who gave the appearance of someone who didn't date at all, women or men.

Watson picked up the tiny scrap of paper in the evidence bag. "Odd, it's an almost perfect square."

Sherlock dropped his cup onto its saucer with a loud clatter. "Give it here." He demanded and Watson handed it over like he'd been bit.

Sherlock removed the small piece of paper from the bag and placed it at the bottom right corner of his place mat. It squared to almost a T. "How stupid of me." Sherlock announced and then looked over at Watson. "As usual, John, your ability to see only the obvious is proving an immense help to me, although my head injury was no doubt a factor in my inability to see it as well."

"I'm going to pretend that was a compliment."

Sherlock abandoned the second half of his bagel. "Come on."

"Where're we going?"

"To Scotland Yard."

XXX

Lestrade looked down at the tiny piece of paper, evidence that had proved to be nothing but a tiny scrap of paper, unremarkable and perhaps not even related to the case. "I take it you have you run your home-spun chemical tests on it." He asked Sherlock who stood before his desk piled with the paper work he loathed. Watson stood beside him and Lestrade was once again struck with the notion that Doctor John Watson, despite going around with a perfectly lovely lady, was a little infatuated with his flat-mate.

"I did." Sherlock said, pointing to his nose.

Lestrade got the point. "Your scientific methods consisted of you, in this case, smelling it?"

"Yes. The nose knows, Lestrade. Well, mine does at any rate. The odor was very faint but it was there. A cheap man's cologne – that revolting concoction 'Axe' if I'm not mistaken, but I'd rather more refer you to its shape."

"It's a small square of an envelope and it was hardly a mystery. The lab techs didn't find ink or a hair or a fingerprint, not even a smudge of one, just like the whole flat. The killer wiped the place down Holmes. Conclusion: it's a piece of scrap that the dead guy missed tossing in his waste basket. And I wear Axe by the way."

"As I said something so cheap even a policeman can afford it. No, it's a clue, or more accurately, a planted clue."

Lestrade leaned back and rested one hand on his stomach as though he had suddenly developed a case of indigestion. "All right, I may as well play along - why is it a planted clue?"

Sherlock picked up an envelope randomly off the Inspector's desk and handed it to him. "Here, Lestrade, try and make one just like it."

Lestrade put the envelope down and picked up one that did not have the police Commissioner's name and address on it. "If you don't mind, I'll use this."

But it was not so easy to do. No matter how many times he tried he could not tear off a perfect square. Finally he took his time and with great care managed to produce one nearly perfectly square.

By the time he was done Lestrade had a frown on his face and Sherlock knew he had scored a point. "You see? It's not a natural tear, physics indicates the paper would tear at its weakest points and the tear would be irregular. So why would anyone tear off a corner of an envelope like that unless they meant to do so?"

Lestrade dropped his experimental envelope with all the little corners torn off. It looked like a dog had gotten a hold of it and made it into a chew toy. "I don't see that it means anything except that I think you think it was left for you."

"The killer, whoever he or she was, knew our industrious but below average task force would overlook its significance. I however did not."

Watson leaned in and said loudly enough for everyone to hear "Who made that discovery?"

Sherlock hardly skipped a beat "Behave Watson. You noted its shape; I deduced the importance of that shape."

Lestrade knew where this was going. "So I suppose now you'll want all of his phone records and the names and addresses of his friends and co-workers and anything else we've gathered so far even though it's going to turn out to be a boring robbery and you'll have wasted my and the department's time?"

Sherlock rocked on his heels. "Yup."

Lestrade jerked a thumb toward the door. "See Donovan then. She drew the privilege of cleaning up the dead fatty."

Donovan was not pleased. "Lestrade assigned the Freak to me?" She spat her rude nick-name for Sherlock at Watson who, as happened every time he heard it, wanted to punch her lights out. He fisted his right hand and clamped his mouth shut.

So Sherlock addressed her himself. "Yes, the Freak needs to see all your case notes and laboratory results and now please." The unkind nick-name had hardly ever caused Sherlock to pause in his speech to the upstart police sergeant.

Save for the first time when John had seen a shadow pass over Sherlock's face. It had disappeared almost instantly and anyone who hadn't spent time with the man would not have recognised it for what it was; hurt. For all of Sherlock's claims to be above mere flawed mortals, he was capable of feeling things and, John knew, frequently did.

Donovan grabbed a pile of manila folders an inch thick and all but tossed them at him. "Knock yourself out Freak."

Retreating from the disapproving eyes of Donovan to a local cafe', Sherlock handed a small stack of the lab reports to Watson who had to put aside his toast to make room for them. "What am I looking for?"

"I'll know that when you find it." Sherlock said cryptically. "I'm not actually sure. Concentrate on the dead man's over-all health."

"But we already know he was suffocated."

"General health – was he suffering from any STD's, was he depressed? Are there therapy visits? He was a drunk, how much of a drunk was he? I know you have a mind, Watson, use it."

"Testy."

"I've wasted a week recovering from that bloody stupid cab driver and that's a week our killer's had to cover his or her tracks. Most likely it was a man but a large woman might have the strength to get him sufficiently drunk, shove a large pillow over his head and press down firmly."

It sounded as though Sherlock were reading a recipe, an actual recipe, for murder. Sherlock himself was concentrating on the crime scene photos. Although they had actually been at the crime scene itself, there had been people tramping all through it and Watson knew Sherlock always perused the photos as well during quiet moments where he was without distraction. Over the years he had come up with some valuable clues doing so.

But that was not to happen today. Sherlock thrust the photos down disgustedly and held fisted hands over his eyes, letting out a frustrated groan.

John was immediately worried. "Another headache?"

"Yes. Why the hell can't medical science come up with a pain killer that works? I can't focus my mind at all. This is so unfair."

That Sherlock had even taken a pain killer told John the headache was a bad one. "At the risk of being called an idiot, I think you need to lie down for a while. You've been going all day."

Sherlock opened his mouth and John would swear the insult in question was about to escape, when Sherlock changed his mind and merely sighed. "Why do you always think sleep will solve everything? Sleep is the retreat for the lazy man."

"Plus it oh, I don't know, keeps us from dying."

"It takes thirty-six months for a man to die from fatal familial insomnia and only seconds for me to die of boredom and by the way this conversation is already threatening my life."

"Very testy."

"Never mind, I have an errand to run. Do you have any money?"

"You don't have any money?"

"Not with me."

"So we came into a restaurant, you in fact, insisted we come here and you have no money?"

"You keep stating the obvious, when oh when are you going to conquer that?"

John reached for his wallet. "How much do you need?"

"Fifty pounds."

"Fifty? Planning a little get away not that I wouldn't enjoy the peace and quiet?"

Already impatient - "N-o-o-o-o." Sherlock intoned.

"Then why do you need fifty pounds?"

"I've an army to finance and I'm a bit short."

"Ah, right, your street soldiers. How much money do you have in the bank?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? Great." Watson appeared a bit uncomfortable. "Uh, look, Sherlock, this may not be a good time to tell you but-"

"You're getting engaged."

John looked startled and then almost as swiftly, annoyed. "How in the hell do you know that...never mind." He put up his palms to stop Sherlock before he started in.

But it was too late. "You're about to move in together, John, it is hardly rocket science. You're an old fashioned fellow therefore you would never consider cohabitating unless your intentions were focused on marriage. Also you have been seeing Mary for many, many months plus," he raked his eyes over his friends face and clothing, making him squirm just a little, "plus you're rather more well groomed than usual, and you have just refused me a loan that at any other time during our association you would not have hesitated to cough up so I deduced that you've recently made a rather expensive purchase – a diamond engagement ring seems the most logical probability. And naturally you're anticipating more expenses in the near future, in other words...wedding plans." He had said the "w" word as though it had left a bad taste in his mouth. "So your wallet is most likely a bit thinner than the norm."

The waiter brought the bill and John, with a sigh, pulled out some notes and handed them over to the man with tip. To Sherlock he said "Let's go home."

"Am I right?"

John frowned "Yes, yes, you're right you damned hound dog with a bone, you're right. Can we go now?"

"Now who's testy?"

But there was to be no rest for either man as John's phone trilled for his attention while the doorbell downstairs called for Sherlock's.

John spoke into his phone for a moment while he watched Sherlock lead a plain blonde girl of about twenty into the flat and seated her in John's chair, and then sitting opposite her and crossing his long legs. John noted that Sherlock did not steeple his hands and that meant he was not so much interested in the case as in the intellectual – or otherwise - reward.

Despite his call from Mary and his now shortened time-table, he sat down on the desk chair to watch. Missing Sherlock deduce a problem was almost without fail missing a good show.

"So Miss Pendergast." Sherlock began, "Why have you come to me today and bear in mind that I'd prefer no mind numbing chit-chat because I and therefore you are short on time. We have three minutes –go."

"That's a bit rude." She said, her hands fumbling nervously with the tiny purse in her lap. She wore a pony-tail and too much make-up.

Sherlock checked his watch. "We ran out of coffee this morning so I'm short on patience as well. Two minutes and fifty-five seconds."

John observed the swift back and forth as though he was watching a particularly fine tennis match.

"I think my fiancé is cheating on me."

"Did you catch him in bed with another woman?"

"N-no, of-"

"A man then?"

"Certainly not. Why would you ask -?"

"No reason other than it might have moved things along. Two minutes and forty seconds. How long have you been seeing each other?"

"Two years."

"Engaged?"

"Four months, why-"

"Please try to remember that I'm the detective and I shall ask the questions. Two minutes left. Has he changed his cologne lately? Purchased a new suit or article of clothing? Wearing a new haircut?"

"Well, he bought new underwear."

"Still in the package?"

"No, it's in the hamper. I haven't had a chance to laun-"

"Leopard print?"

She stared as though at an apparition and then she blurted "Tiger stripes."

"And he didn't wear them for you."

"Well, no, but he said he would just as soon as they've gone through the wash."

"Trust me; they've already gone through several times. He's cheating."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Simply a hypothesis and one I'm confident that I will confirm during the next-" he glanced at his watch, "one minute and twenty-five seconds. After a relationship of two years no man buys new underwear for the ordinary woman at his side but instead for the more exciting, younger and prettier woman with whom he has been enjoying secret rendezvous.

"For the woman at his side he wears graying shorts with holes and is comfortable enough to watch television in them while making bodily noises to rival any barn animal. I see you have a bag of donuts from the sweet shop over on Broadstone."

Seemingly only half keeping up with what Sherlock was saying and the lightening speed at which he was saying it, in his own experience a frequent verbal paralytic with which John could well empathise, Miss Pendergast stuttered "Er - y-yes."

"Not for you."

"No, they're for-"

"-His office workers but today he became distracted and left them behind and you're kindly delivering them to him."

"Yes, how in the world-?"

"You both frequent this sweet shop, it is on his way to his office job hence the donuts for his co-workers and you were on your way to where you volunteer, by your rugged attire of dungarees and over-sized man-shirt, I'm assuming it's the soup kitchen next to the Neighbor's Exchange. They already have donuts."

"Look, I just don't understand how-? I mean don't you want to follow him or something?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"What about incriminating photos then?"

"Photos of your fiancé' – or anyone - wearing tiger striped underwear is, and I cannot stress this enough, not my area – in fact it is proving detrimental to my digestion – suffice it to say this is a simple case of infidelity and as boring a case with which I have ever been faced. Tea?"

"No."

"Just as well, we're out of milk. And time. Anything else?"

At his impatient expression she pressed her lips together firmly and answered "Yes. Yes. You're correct on everything so far, but I want proof."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Fine-fine-fine. Your distracted fiancé was in fact distracted this morning by I suspect a girl in the pastry shop. I calculate an eighty percent probability that it's one of them he is seeing on the side. Confront him with this information and he'll crack, and by the way she's probably seen them."

"Seen what?"

"The underwear." He looked at his watch conspicuously. "Once again, we are out of time."

Pendergast's face turned purple. "That lying, cheating bastard! I'm going to march over to his office right now and throw this diamond ring right in his bloody face."

"Why bother? You could always pawn it, a few pounds would be the least reward one should get from enduring a, to use your words, 'lying, cheating fiancé' - one with appalling taste in underclothing I might add. By the way although it is the cheapest of gold rings so as not to tarnish on your finger and give the game away it's not a diamond."

"It isn't?"

"No. Costume stone. Good costume but definitely fake, worth about fifty pounds at any used trinket vendor."

"How in the world can you be so sure just by looking?"

"I'm Sherlock Holmes, I do not look I observe. Yet once again Time. Is. Up. You may pay me now."

"I see." With some difficulty Pendergast collected herself somewhat and reached inside her purse. "Well, I see, well, thank you for your service, Mister Holmes." She took out her check book. "What do I owe you?"

"Fifty pounds."

"Fifty pounds!?"

Again John could well empathise but seeing Sherlock's resolute expression, Pendergast, her face turning several shades of purple now, wrote out the amount and tore off the check from her little book. She thrust at him as though at a tax collector.

After Sherlock had escorted her out John said "You know, that ring was probably only worth twenty pounds – if that."

"I am aware."

"That's a bit of a dirty trick Sherlock."

"Lend me fifty pounds and I shall chase after her."

Watson sat down and wrote out a check for fifty pounds and then thrust it at him much the same way Pendergast had. "Now go after her and give her that check back. She doesn't look rich enough to pay the piper never mind your overpriced advice."

Sherlock pocketed Watson's check. He then took Pendergast's check between his fingers and tore it in half. "Isn't Mary expecting you at some-or-other wedding shop? Haven't you tux's to try on?"

Watson nodded, not bothering to ask how Sherlock had guessed what his phone call was about. "I'll see you later?" He asked but left without waiting for the answer.

Sherlock looked after his flat-mate as he descended the stairs to the street, a bit of his former depression returning. "Not if I see you first."

The fifty pounds, plus a two by three photograph of the deceased in question, swiftly disappeared into the unwashed hands of five of his street people who were advised to seek out information in the pubs the dead man was most likely to have frequented.

Task complete Sherlock turned toward home. He raised his hand to hail a cab and then decided against it. John would not wish to pay the cab fare too. Besides the doctor in him was always pestering Sherlock to get more exercise. He did not understand why John did not think chasing criminals down back alleyways was exercise. But their flat lay only five or so blocks away. He decided to walk.

XXX

It had been several hours and John, trying on his tenth horribly uncomfortable tux while Mary critiqued it - too wide at the shoulder, too narrow at the waist, made him look too short, made him look too tall, made him look old, made him look...dumpy-

John praised modern technology when his phone rang and he jumped for his coat, fumbling for the phone from the inside pocket and almost dropping it in the process. Delighted for the break from tuxedo hell he opened it, cupping his hand over the tiny mouth-piece. "Sorry, hon', I probably have to take this." He said to Mary with what he knew was much too much enthusiasm. Pressing the ridiculously small button - "Hello?"

"John?"

"Sherlock. All done spending my money are we? Why are you calling from a booth?"

"A print shop. I need you to come."

"I'm a little busy at the moment; have you no cab-fare either? Sherlock, I swear-"

"I need you to come right now."

John stopped, all humour draining from his voice in an instant. "Sherlock? What's wrong? You sound...funny."

"Something's wrong obviously." But there was no bite in the words. If anything Sherlock sounded scared.

"What's wrong? Did one of your street people or...has something happened to Molly?"

By this time Mary was standing by listening in, her face concerned.

"Something's happened to me. Please come?"

What caused John's heart to begin racing like a two-year-old colt was that Sherlock sounded so...small. And he had asked him to come. Not demanded.

Asked. "We'll come straight away. Where are you?" He stared at Mary as he spoke and she nodded, heading toward the store's main door to bring the car around. On the way out she turned and mouthed a question "Does he have GPS on his phone?"

Watson nodded.

"Not far I think." Sherlock was breathing fast. Too fast. "I can't seem to...remember the way home."

XXX

"Mary where are you going?" Sherlock asked when she steered the car away from Baker Street and turned in the direction of Paddington.

"We're taking you to The London." Watson answered referring to a nearby hospital. One he knew had a neurology clinic with a world-wide reputation. He sat beside Sherlock in the rear seat, keeping a close eye on his friend. "You've suffered a sudden memory loss Sherlock; that is not something you treat with aspirin and a smoke."

"Nonsense, I simply became confused for a moment."

"And if you're admitting that, it's probably worse than I thought." Watson countered.

"Take me home." Sherlock insisted, sounding like himself again.

"Not a chance in hell." Watson said. "Mary – keep going."

But when she had to stop for a street light, Sherlock threw open his door and stepped out before John could snatch his coat and pull him back in "Sherlock! You son-of-a...get back here right this second!"

But Sherlock merely closed the door and waved over his shoulder, ignoring his friend's angry bark. "Thanks for the lift. I remember the way now. See you at home."

Twenty minutes later Sherlock heard the main door to the building slam shut with a bang that should have popped the windows out, and John's heavy feet on the stairs. Watson threw open the door, pointed a finger at his infuriating flat-mate. "Sherlock, sometimes you are the MOST stupid, stubborn bastard I have ever known. You could have a bleed in your brain – do you realise that? Goddamnit, a memory loss is not something you can just ignore!"

Sherlock closed his eyes to John's reddened face, trying to ignore the throbbing in his own head. "I feel perfectly fine. I became confused, that's all. I am probably over-tired as you earlier suggested."

"Over-tired? Is that it 'doctor'? You're over-tired and so for the first time in all the years you've been living here – which is eight or nine years I think – you just- tah-da! – lost your way? You just forgot how to get home from just a few blocks? We were separated for hours Sherlock, we have no idea how long you might have been out there wandering around confused. You might have been unconscious for all I – or you – know."

Sherlock only remembered suddenly waking up as though he had been asleep on his feet, his legs moving but unsure of where he was. Yes, it was a concern but he was not prepared to let any doctor, other than John, examine him. Not yet. "Can't you examine me?"

John plopped into his chair and tried rubbing the frustration from his face with both hands. It didn't work. "Yes, I can examine you but I don't exactly have the equipment here to give you a bloody CAT scan."

"I already had one."

"And as far as the radiologist could tell, it was normal. Yes, I remember of course but tests don't always reveal everything and doctors can be wrong."

Sherlock sighed. "Fine, I'll make it a request. Will you examine me?"

Watson shook his head but Sherlock suspected it wasn't in negation but resignation. "Yes, I'll examine you but only if you promise me that if this ever, and I mean ever, happens again, you'll agree to a second scan and this time an MRI?"

Sherlock immediately resolved that if it did happen again he would tell John nothing whatever about it. But it wasn't going to happen again and even if it did next time he would use his phone to get him home. He had GSP after all, and there were online maps. Only he hadn't thought to use them. "Agreed."

Mary entered the flat to see John bent over a seated Sherlock. John was moving his index finger back and forth in front of Sherlock's eyes. She recognised it as a basic first test to determine if there was anything amiss in the visual acuity of the patient.

"Your vision appears normal so far but I'm afraid that doesn't tell us much other than there's no obvious damage." John muttered.

He then took out his pen-torch and shone it into Sherlock's eyes, lifting his friend's chin with his left hand as he moved the light from one glacier-blue iris to the other.

Mary sat on the desk chair and watched. Curiously Sherlock seemed to lean into John's hand, appearing to give himself over to the touch. According to John not even Sherlock's own brother Mycroft ever touched his younger brother. She wondered if the ten year difference in their ages had anything to do with it.

Her heart beat a little faster at the intensity of Sherlock's gaze as he stared back into John's darker irises. Sherlock seemed almost hypnotized by them. But then he had got badly banged up in the accident.

Finally the examination was over and John removed his fingers from Sherlock's jaw, drawing his hand away. Sherlock's head seemed to follow it just an inch or so, before dropping back, as though his flesh mourned the loss. Mary was a bit surprised by it but supposed the man had experienced so little physical affection during his life any touch whatever must be a rare and welcomed comfort. What the hell had his mother been doing all those years of his growing up? How does one reach adulthood without knowing the kindness and warmth of a loving touch?

John walked over to her. "Ready to go?"

She nodded. "I hope you're feeling better Sherlock." She'd liked him right away the night they'd met where John had then punched his long-absent friend's proverbial lights out. "I really wish you'd listen to John and go to the hospital."

Sherlock looked at her but only said. "Will you be home tonight Watson?"

John looked at Mary and smiled. "Don't wait up."

XXX

Mary steered the car toward the suburbs and her modest house with the flower garden at the back. The front of the tiny house thrust right out to the sidewalk. Only a small iron fence and gate plus two feet of walkway separated her front door with the pavement. "Do you think he'll be all right?"

John shrugged. "Who knows?" Then he nodded, it adding weight to his visible worry. "I hope so."

She turned the key and swung the door open.

He followed her inside. "He's a stubborn bastard, but there's clearly something amiss. He let me touch him and that tells me he was not quite all there tonight. Some residual something from whatever's happening inside his brain I'd guess."

"What do you mean he let you?"

"Oh, of course, you don't know." John took a seat in her lemon coloured kitchen while she filled a kettle and lit the burner. "Sherlock hates being touched."

XXX

Part 2 asap


	3. Part 3

The Glass Heart Part 3

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

The shower did little to dispel the physical feeling of being somehow...encrusted by the world.

Sherlock scrubbed at his arms and moved the soapy sponge over his chest and abdomen but rather than feeling cleansed the action seemed to only intensify the sensation of being trapped outside his own flesh.

His skin felt not his own anymore, his fingers moved over the surface and each part they encountered the contact only awakened flesh that was already too sensitive and twitched in response, his nerves awakened and then repulsed by the touch as though his skin was on loan to another, as though a physical disconnection had taken place.

It was merely a psychological sensation and he knew it could only be related to his momentary mental confusion of the day before. He'd merely become absent-minded, that was all and had got himself into a bit of a panic about it, the event leaving his nervous system temporarily affected.

Even Sherlock Holmes can have an off day.

XXX

Watson didn't intend to greet Sherlock when Sherlock was dressed in practically nothing but when his friend emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam and a towel he set his feet wide, crossed his arms and didn't budge. Sherlock stopped, took one look at him, rolled his eyes and pushed his way passed John, strolling into the living room as though it were his pesky brother standing there, not his best friend who had rescued him the day before.

John almost reached out a hand to stop him but didn't know exactly where to put it without intruding on his friend's touchy personal space, which at that moment was half naked. The touchiness only seemed to run one way however as Sherlock seemed to possess no personal boundaries at all when it came to invading the space of others such as standing toe to toe in intimidation, grabbing John by the hand or the head or whatever body part happened to be handy just as long as he was able to hurry him along during a suspect chase.

The perpetually "not hungry" detective even stole food off his plate when he wasn't looking. After countless muffins or hot buttered toast that had been absconded from his plate over the years Watson had slowly come to the conclusion that Sherlock rarely needed to sit down to a proper meal because he was always stealing enough from his flat-mate's to satisfy.

He followed Sherlock into the sitting room. "Sherlock, we need to talk about this."

Sherlock ignored him and set to making a pot of coffee.

"Sherlock..."

"There is nothing we need to discuss. You diagnosed me and I am fine."

"What are you talking about? I didn't diagnose you."

"You examined me and clearly you recognised that medically there is nothing seriously wrong with me, if there had been you would have stayed with me last night. Ergo - I. Am. Fine."

John did a bit of a double-take. "That wasn't a bloody diagnoses and, by the way, I said you should be in a hospital, so that was me trying not to beat you to a pulp for your stup –er - wait a second, are you...are you upset with me for leaving you alone last night?" The conversation had suddenly taken a right turn into the emotional side of things and he was neither expecting it nor prepared for the change of course.

"Of course not. Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not the one who's being ridiculous."

"Of course you are."

Watson sighed and dropped his chin to his chest. He decided that the offensive in this case would get him nowhere, not that it ever hardly did. He took a seat at the kitchen table. "Look, Sherlock, I'm your friend. We're just worried about you is all. I don't know why exactly, I've spun my head around trying to figure out why, but you don't take care of yourself. And, let's face it; I might not always be around to help you when you need it."

Sherlock looked around at him, his hair dripping onto his face. "You should speak plainly, John. Very soon you will not be around at all. This is not a new situation for me, I was perfectly content on my own and I shall be again."

That sounded ominous. "Are you saying...you don't want to be friends anymore?" His heart skipped a beat or two.

"How did you manage to infer that? I am referring to our living situation. You and Mary will soon be together in-" he raised his fingers in double bunny-ear quotes " 'wedded bliss' and I shall be free to pursue my cases as usual. I will be as fine as I have always been before you moved in. By the way I left a fifty-pound check on the desk."

"You're flush again?"

"Mycroft deposited my living allowance."

"You have a living allowance?"

"From my parent's estate - yes."

John had always suspected Sherlock's parents to be deceased. They never came around and he never went home –wherever home was -for a visit. "Mycroft controls your parent's estate?"

"No my parents control their estate, they are alive and well, but they have granted my inheritance to me as a regular allowance deposited once a month."

John couldn't help it, he was curious. "Really...um, how much?" " Sherlock's parents had to be well off, and far more insightful of their son than he had first imagined because, somehow, earlier on in his life, they had recognised that any sort of normal employment would have been intolerable for Sherlock. He was so far removed from the everyday person in the way his mind worked that, even if someone were to have hired him to do – what work-a-day job Watson couldn't guess – he would have been so miserable that it would not have lasted long enough to gather a single pay check.

Sherlock would have been, and still was, all but unemployable except for the largely unpaid living he pursued right now as a consulting detective – a career he had invented by virtue of his incredible mind.

Mycroft had obviously understood Sherlock's unique needs as well, and so the parents had left the oversight of their youngest son to the elder; the high paid, powerfully connected, government employed one. Mycroft was scary smart, too, but he had mastered the art of "getting along" with the rest of the human race, a skill Sherlock had yet to entirely achieve.

Mycroft, as John had come to understand, was the Man In Charge. He watched over Sherlock and, in his spare time, the nation. So much so that England's most guarded secrets were left in his capable hands. Of the two brothers, it seemed Mycroft, with his sniffing distain for anything remotely resembling socializing, his umbrella that he carried rain or shine, his three piece suits with the gold pocket watch and the long black cars that carried him from one national concern to the other still orbited the norm more tightly than did Sherlock.

"How much what?" Sherlock had a cream pot tipped over his cup of coffee, about to pour in milk.

The question, John realised, was a bit indelicate. "I mean are you - can you live comfortably on what they give you?" John suddenly wondered if his moving out was going to cause Sherlock financial hardship.

"Quite comfortably. I have little need for luxuries. I only came up short recently because every-so-often Mycroft likes to hold some money back for a few days. It gives him a jolt of power to know he still has some influence over my life. At other times he does it to punish me - the prissy bastard."

Plus Mycroft was no doubt aware of Sherlock's total disregard for the everyday practicalities of money and that without that control in place Sherlock would go through it in no time like a fat kid with a sack of gummy bears John thought. He had seen Sherlock toss money into the hands of his street people by the fist-full as though he had a magical and bottomless pocket of it that would never fail him.

But they had gotten way off topic now. "Sherlock, be honest with me." John urged, asking without any of the stewing anger or frustration with which he had arrived "Are you going to be all right? Really?"

Sherlock answered in kind, his voice low, his words free of any resentment. "I will always be all right."And then a gentle tease. "Impossible not to be you know with the ever persistent John Watson hovering over me."

He set a cup before Watson and brought the coffee pot itself to the table, himself sitting down opposite his friend. "Now do you still wish to assist me on this case?"

"Of course, that's never going to change."

Sherlock nodded once. "Then I'll get dressed and we will make inquiries of my army. Something has got to surface in the perplexingly vacant life our victim seemed to have led."

"No family or friends?" That wasn't necessarily odd. As far as John knew, Sherlock had a host of acquaintances but only one friend.

"None that have come to light. Not all that usual however, he might have been an only child and his parents are probably already deceased and many people go through life with few friends or none."

Watson couldn't help but wonder if he was Sherlock's first and only. "How sure are you that the clue of the paper was left for you?"

"If it had just been that, I would be more inclined to have doubts but it is the paper plus the glass heart, one clue suggesting a female and one suggesting a male assailant, in effect a double clue pointing in different directions. This is a game to someone."

"What if your street army comes up with nothing?"

"Speculation is useless until we've spoken to them but if they come up empty..."

"What?"

"We will see."

XXX

Watson spent an hour driving Sherlock all over the area scouting out his little shabby army. One named Teresa offered up with the only tid-bit. "Carson's the bartender over on Linhope street. 'Said your dead bloke come in there few times a week, sometimes had a few with this other guy; big fella', clean cut, dressed in a suit. Nice shoes too. No name but they seemed chummy. 'Cept this one time your guy seemed all queer and anxious, like he was worried about something bad. They had some words, loud ones, and left together."

"What day was that?" Sherlock asked her. Watson noticed that not once during the conversation thus far had she looked at Sherlock or himself.

"Ten days ago Thursday. Left around one in the morning."

Watson asked "Where did they go?"

She then stared at him like he was a dunce. "Well they probably went back to your dead bloke's place didn't they? Seeing as he was dead the next morning."

Watson responded in kind. "A vague description is hardly worth the ten pounds Sherlock sent your way. Can you tell us anything that might help us track down this other man, seeing as he might be our murderer?"

"He had a way of talking that didn't fit with the clientele Your Majesty." She sneered with no little sarcasm. "An accent that was out of town - way out of town as in not from here. And he smelled."

"That's it?" Watson asked. "He had an accent and he stunk?"

"Did I say stink? I said he smelled."

Sherlock clarified for John "The odor was pleasant? The bartender's name is Carson? Thank you Teresa." Then Sherlock stepped forward and lowered his voice, although not low enough that Watson couldn't hear it. "You'll have to excuse my partner. He had to try on a dozen ugly tuxes the other day and the experience has left him a bit grumpy."

They returned to the car and Watson slid in behind the wheel. He had never seen Sherlock drive a car yet and wondered if the man even possessed a license. But he supposed if one had the money to cab it everywhere owning a car would seem superfluous.

Watson started the engine but let it idle for a moment as they talked. "Now what?"

"Now we go to the pub in question and think while we wait for all in the network to check in."

"You mean they call you?"

"They text me and I meet them."

"Why don't they just text you the information?"

"Because they are on limited means and texting costs money."

Watson put the car in gear. "Driving you around costs me money. And I can't stay long. I've got to work sometime today and Mary and I are going to her auntie's place for dinner."

"Dinner? We are on a case John."

"No, you are on a case. I am earning a paycheck and then spending the evening with my future wife's aunt."

"Boring."

XXX

Watson parked the car in front of the Olde Tyme Pub and Grille. "You know your friend Teresa's description of our possible suspect matches half the men walking by on the street, how are we supposed to spot him providing he's even in there?"

"This fellow is smart, and if he's really smart he won't even come back here."

"So why are we here then?"

"I'm hoping that he's not that smart. Come on." But when Watson didn't move Sherlock looked back through the car window. "I'm fairly certain they don't deliver john."

"Sherlock, text me if anything happens. I mean anything that you really and I mean really need help with. Otherwise I have to show up at the Surgery if I want to get paid. And remember..."

"I know- Mary's auntie's house. Steak pie and tea in a stuffy room for God's sake. I can hear the conversation now." And then in a scratchy falsetto: "John, what's it like being a doctor? Where are you working? Mary tells me you were in a war. She said you came home with a limp. Where is your limp? My hips hurts something awful, what do you think it means? More tea and would you mind very much draining my adenoids while you're here?"

Sherlock just as sarcastically strung together the answers for him. "Being a doctor is good. Yes I was in a war for two years and in therapy for three, and no I don't actually have a real job, I touch infected testicles part time. And my limp is all better in fact I imagined it. Lovely spot of pie Mrs. Morston. You're adenoids are as big as walnuts. Lovely home." Sherlock leaned into the window. "So. Very. Boring."

John didn't rise to the bait. "Mock me if you must but Mary's aunt happens to make an excellent steak and kidney pie." John put the car in gear. "Happy hunting ol' boy."

XXX

John didn't find himself at the surgery for long before a long black Jaguar pulled up to the front door. He saw it out the window and hung his head with a heavy sigh. "God - that bloody man."

Cursing all government officials and Mycroft Holmes in particular John walked out to the car and waited until the electric window lowered. An impeccably dressed Anthea was sitting there playing with her phone. "Get in Doctor Watson."

"Why?"

"Because Mycroft wishes to speak with you of course."

"He can come here."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm working."

"Mister Holmes instructed me to tell you that he is very worried about Sherlock and would you please come so he can discuss it with you."

John bit his lip. Yes he was worried as well. If he and the elder Holmes brother were at least on the same page where Sherlock was concerned, perhaps it wouldn't be bad idea to join heads and discuss what might be done about it. "Fine."

XXX

John looked around the spacious, modern flat of Mycroft Holmes. As little personal attention as Sherlock paid to his home surroundings, to that same extent Mycroft was the opposite. The place, what john could see of it - the living room and a stately oak desk by a large bay window - was sparsely but expensively furnished. Rich oriental rugs adorned the hallway and the space by the hearth. Whatever wasn't richly oiled wood was glass, steel and well cared for leather. Underneath the pleasant scent of lemon wood oil John could detect something astringent, as though every square foot had been scrubbed with antiseptic to within an inch of its life. I could operate in here Watson thought.

He faced Mycroft who, as at Parliament, in his home was dressed in a three piece suit. Even here he doesn't drop his official facade. Watson noted that at least the man wasn't carting around an umbrella.

"What am I doing here?"

"Because, John, you and I need to talk."

"You could have just telephoned. The black car pulling up at my surgery door all cloak and dagger is a bit much don't you think?"

"You have been ignoring my texts."

"I've been busy and, no, it's none of your business with what."

Mycroft smirked at that, taking the man's fierce show of independence in stride. When Mycroft gestured to a chair Watson shook his head. "No thanks - trust me this isn't going to take long."

Mycroft rolled his eyes in a ghostly imitation of his younger sibling and it made John's heart leap in his chest just a bit. Other than their individual heights that levelled off at around one point eight meters (although Mycroft had perhaps a few centimeters on his brother), the two brothers looked nothing alike.

John had met the Holmes boys' parents just once and that only a glimpse when John caught Sherlock shoving them out the door of his flat one day as he had come back from a grocer's trip. It had struck him as incredible that Sherlock and his brother, two geniuses on the order of extra-so had been brought into the world via such everyday appearing persons.

John recalled Sherlock some time ago mentioning in passing that his mother had given up a career as a physicist to have children. So his mother apparently possessed a none-too-shabby brain herself. But once she had discovered the sheer genius of her sons it must have given her and her husband some pause. Geniuses, true geniuses, were a difficult lot and raising them, as John had since discovered through some very interesting night reading, was not for the faint of heart.

Physically there was some resemblance between parents and children. Mycroft had taken after the mother's wider jaw and more eager nose that rudely thrust itself out into the world and into everybody's business.

But Sherlock - John had since considered the question long and hard - Sherlock had inherited none of his mothers and only a smattering of his father's features. Perhaps the similar shape of eye, the cold blue of the irises, yet when it was demanded of him a warmer gaze capable of looking with empathy on a victim in an even colder world. Sherlock had his father's long face perhaps but the straight, even nose and the beautifully sculpted look to his cheek bones, bottomed by a full mouth, bear no resemblance what-so-ever to either parent.

As for the dark head of curls and the more elegant build of the man himself, John wondered if there was an uncle on the father's side that was more in keeping with the over-all physique of face and body Sherlock had inherited. It was not unheard of that a child might take on the appearance of a parents' sibling instead of either parent. Some genes are stronger than others. John decided not to contemplate the possibility that Sherlock's mother had chatted up a fellow or two aside from her husband.

But John guessed that Sherlock, coming when his mother had to have been nearing her mid forties, had been a surprise to the middle aged couple.

John crossed his arms and addressed the elder and - as hard as it sometimes was to believe - far less pleasant brother. "What do you want?"

"When Sherlock was eight, my father and mother bought him a puppy..."

Watson rolled his eyes but Mycroft plunged on.

"You see my brother was a genius even at that age and they noticed something about Sherlock – he didn't get on with people, not even then. So my parents in their misguided wisdom thought the dog might bring him out of his shell and do you know what – it did. He began to come out of his shell – toward the dog. Sherlock loved that dog, simply loved it. He loved it so much that when our younger cousin Bernadette came to visit one summer, my parents let Sherlock take her and Red-beard – that was his dog - down the stream outback on the estate. Daddy even tied the leash to her tiny wrist so she would not get lost and so Red-beard would stay right with them to protect them.

"Bernadette could not swim and neither could Sherlock so during a game of chase the stick Red-beard got himself into a bit of a pickle. Sherlock threw the stick a bit too far into the stream and the dog took off after it. Red-beard could swim well enough as dogs do but as I mentioned little Bernadette could not and so Red-beard in his enthusiasm to retrieve the stick dragged our little cousin into the stream and under the water. The stream was running quite high that spring. We'd had a lot of rain you see.

"Sherlock of course, being who he is, jumped right in after them and even though he couldn't swim either he struggled to save...Red-beard."

Mycroft paused and then asked "Are you sure you don't want to sit down John?"

John relented. He knew this story was going no place good but now he needed to hear all of it. He walked to the overstuffed chair Mycroft had indicated earlier and sat stiffly.

"You see, Sherlock cared about that dog. He cared so much that he ignored his drowning cousin and went after Red-beard, even though in doing so he was risking drowning himself. When all the parents finally realised the children were delaying and investigated they were far too late to save Bernadette, and they almost didn't save Sherlock. He was revived on the shore and taken to hospital where he spent two weeks in bed with pneumonia so severe he almost died again. And the moral of the story? He didn't even save the dog and all of it because he cared so much."

Mycroft uncrossed his legs and leaned back against the polished desk opposite the chair where John sat listening. John was shocked to see that Mycroft had bags under his eyes. He looked like he was about ready to peg out. "Now we come to my point. During these last two years, John, just in case you haven't at this juncture figured it out, you have become the dog. Sherlock cares about you. He loves you. He's practically in love with you. You are Red-beard now and sooner or later that is going to kill Sherlock."

John had listened with rapt attention, absorbing the stark images Mycroft had evoked in his mind. The man knew how to tell a tragedy. But John also knew he was wrong. "I'm not a dog. I'm a man and I've saved Sherlock nearly as many times as he's saved me."

Mycroft raised one doubting eyebrow as though to a fibbing child. "I think if you counted those times honestly you'd find that was not so. Sherlock is remarkably adept at getting out of trouble, except for that time, and for this most recent time."

"What do you mean, this last time?"

Mycroft seemed taken a bit aback at that. "He didn't tell you did he?" And then he visually inspected one gleaming shoe. "Mm, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. He cares for you too much to be completely honest."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You know why he faked his own death yes?"

"He wanted to dismantle Moriarty's eastern Network. That's why he had to go to the continent."

"As neat as all that eh?" Mycroft flashed him a tiny smile of irony. "He went because Moriarty had assassins ordered to kill you and a few of his other friends if Sherlock failed to jump and die. Fortunately my brother anticipated Moriarty's scheme and managed not to die. You know this much at least?"

"Yes."

"What he failed to tell you is he did quite well on the continent for about twenty months. But about half way through the twenty-first month he landed in Bosnia and they were not happy to see him. He was caught you see, and kept in a prison for three weeks where they tortured, starved and beat him every day. I managed to track him down and plucked him out of there before they did too much irreversible damage. He I imagine he didn't mention that part of the tale?"

John swallowed thickly. "No."

Mycroft nodded. "You see, John, Sherlock didn't have to go to the continent. Moriarty's network would have fallen eventually. My people certainly haven't been idle in that score. No, Sherlock choose to go. It's because he cares so much for you. And the damage it caused didn't end with his own trials, oh no, while Sherlock was away getting a crowbar on his back to save your life and the lives of not even a handful of others, England underwent several terrorist threats, a dozen murderers got away due to the valiant but inadequate efforts of our beloved Scotland Yard, and innumerable other crimes went unchallenged because, had he been here to assist Lestrade and his mediocre crew, Sherlock would most surely have solved them."

Mycroft straightened and moved around his desk to sit down. He sat heavily, as though he was tired of the world being on his own back, and then he sighed, smiling at Watson sadly. "But he couldn't be here you see, he was off on the continent for two years caring about you and nearly getting himself killed for it."

"If he hadn't dismantled Moriarty's network, more people would have died. Moriarty wasn't finished."

"Oh yes he was, his band of scoundrels just hadn't got the memo yet. Once the top man goes so goes the money and when the money is gone, the minions quit dancing. Even if the assassins finished the job and, forgive me, killed you and the others, Sherlock would have been here to set justice upon them. He would have done what he is so very adept at; he would have fought back against criminals. But most of all he would have been safe."

"You don't know that for sure. And," John latched on to a point he thought Mycroft had missed, "and if I or Lestrade or Misses Hudson had died, what would that have done to Sherlock? If he cares as much as you claim...would you have just stood by and let him fall apart?"

"Yes because I know my brother and my brother always gets up again, as long as he doesn't care too much. And he cares for you, John Watson, too much for his own health. But it's not too late I think. I think if steps were taken right now, he would...get over you and in the long run be better off for it."

"What are you asking me? You want me to break up with Sherlock?"

"Funny you should put it that way but yes. Make a clean break. Take your new fiancé and move away. Move far away; go to Canada or to South America. Forget about Sherlock Holmes so he can live as he was meant to."

"What the hell does that mean? Everyone is meant to have someone care about them."

"No John they're not. Not men like Sherlock. He'll kill for you, die for you; die slowly for you. That is unacceptable, John. Surely you can agree? I have decided that I do not want to see my brother die. Not for you or anyone simply because he has learned to care. He's used his skills to save hundreds – thousands of people over the years. Do you really think it's justified that he should give his life for just three? Or just the one? For you?"

Mycroft appeared to be finished speaking and John stood. "You're wrong about Sherlock. He wouldn't sacrifice himself just for me, I've seen him-"

"-But that's just it, isn't it? You've seen him. Since you've known him he has acted this way or that. You did not know my brother before you entered his life. It's the uncertainty principle John. Your observations are biased. You don't know him without you. Not really. You think he's happy with you. John – Sherlock doesn't understand 'happy' because, despite what you've chosen to believe, his mind doesn't work that way."

"You talk about him as though he were some kind of bloody robot. He has a heart you know, he has a soul. I've seen Sherlock happy."

"Please don't wax poetic, it's so vulgar." Mycroft sighed heavily. "Let me ask you this: What does Sherlock do in his spare time?"

John had to freeze frame his mind for a moment. "What do you mean?"

"You do know what free time is, don't you? Have you ever seen Sherlock go golfing, sketch? Take a trip to Brighton to relax in the sun? Does Sherlock have-" Mycroft smiled at the ludicrous thought "-a hobby?"

John knew the answer. "He plays the violin."

"To you that is music, to Sherlock it's melodious white noise to shut out the world and help him think. Help him solve the puzzle."

"You say you care so much." John was suddenly furious at the smug buggar. "And yet you helped him plan that fake suicide and go to the continent where he got caught and tortured. It doesn't sound to me like you care much at all. I think you enjoy it when he suffers. You're a bloody cold fish Mycroft, in fact you're a right bastard."

Mycroft seemed almost amused, as though listening to the wailings of a frustrated child, and John fisted his hands. He wanted to deck the smarmy prick. "John, what do you think would have happened had we not helped Sherlock in his little game of tragedy?"

"We would have survived like we always do – together. Eventually Moriarty would have been brought down. Maybe a few of us would have died but in my opinion that's no great consequence to save a man who has saved us countless times over."

Mycroft went to sit down again at his desk. The sheer volume of the thing dwarfed him, made him seem smaller. But when he spoke there was no mock. "Sherlock talks about you, you know? You are brave, I'll give you that, but as usual you miss the obvious. Your little band of avengers would not have needed to save Sherlock, John, because if I had not helped him escape to the continent, he would simply have jumped for real."

John swallowed. Yes. It was tough to stomach but he believed that, yes, Sherlock would have jumped and landed on the sidewalk in a heap of blood and broken bones. He would be dead now, for all time. Gone. Forever. John could not bear the thought. His stomach heaved with the notion and his head spun with the horror of it.

Mycroft knew he had scored another point. "I see that you get my point now, Doctor Watson. Sherlock would have died for you. Is that really what you want?"

"Of course not."

Mycroft swivelled his high backed chair and looked out the window behind him. It was dusk and in his part of the globe people were going to sleep. "I made a promise to our parents you know, back when I was still a young man. Younger than Sherlock is now by ten years. I told them I would keep him safe. You see when they realised-" He stopped with a small smile of deep irony - "-when I finally managed to convince them what sort of person Sherlock was they charged me with his care and that is a promise I intend to keep."

"And just what, according to you, is he?"

Mycroft pressed his lips together and a flash of something crossed his face. Was it sadness? "He's vulnerable, John. Ultimately far more vulnerable than you realise."

John had long suspected it of course. Yes, he had seen Sherlock like that; vulnerable, naked, exposed, a man out of his element in the everyday situations that most people breezed through without thought or a backward glance. And during those exceptional times - social events, holidays, being with the happy, the boisterous - Sherlock had looked...lost.

John recalled the only party he ever gave at the flat and Sherlock had let loose with a string of truths to someone he hardly knew simply because the man was there, caught in a lie by the world's only consulting detective. Sherlock was a man whose mind saw it and mouth said it. An act insulting to anyone normal yet perfectly normal to him. Then, when thoroughly chastised by a small group of the suitably outraged, his friend had taken a seat in the corner of the room and gone off into his mind palace without another peep the entire night. John remembered bringing him a glass of wine. Drinking wine with friends at a party, it's what normal people did but which goblet Sherlock then held without sipping at it even once, as though the detective was playing a part and the glass was his prop.

John witnessed it nearly every day. When he was in him element Sherlock was a masterpiece work of art among the mediocre and the mundane. An extraordinary man but, when set among the ordinary, something apart from them, a man outside the acceptable norm. To put it as simply as Donovan often did: Sherlock was a freak of nature.

But John didn't care about any of that. To him Sherlock was, most of all, his friend. "Sherlock's my best friend. I won't abandon him."

"You will if you love him the way you claim to."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Sherlock doesn't do cafe's, John, at least not until he met you. Now he does them all the time. Now he almost gets killed by an assassin in a cab while doing a cafe' with you."

"He wasn't killed."

"But it's left him with what could be a permanent injury, wouldn't you say? Memory loss, headaches...that's why you're so worried. That's why I'm so worried."

"Sherlock's in danger all the time. It comes with the job."

"Yes, I know. But he's in more danger when he exposes himself as much as he has been since meeting you. He lets his guard down around you because he cares about you now. And when his guard is down he becomes vulnerable and this time it almost got him killed. You're Red-beard John, if you love Sherlock the way you say you do then you will find a way to create a gentle but permanent means of exiting his life."

"That cabbie was an accident."

"Sherlock didn't think so. He claims to not care about anyone's opinion but he cares about yours and now he believes it was an accident because you talked him into it. Out of a city of eight million people, your opinion is the only one that matters to him. When it comes to Sherlock's life caring is not an advantage something I have been unsuccessful in convincing him of. So I'm advising you to leave him or face the possible consequences."

That sounded almost like a threat. "And if I don't?"

"Then I shall be forced to take him from you."

That was a threat. "I'd like to see you try."

"Points for nobility but don't make yourself a fool. I'd rather hoped we could agree on this but I will do it John, if you leave me no choice. Which is a pity, I've really gotten used to things as they are between my brother and me."

"I've had enough of your shit, Mycroft. As far as I'm concerned you can go to straight to hell." John turned on his heel and left the room. He was afraid that if he didn't leave, leave right that second, he might have launched himself at the man and beaten him unrecognizable.

XXX

"Mister Holmes."

Sherlock turned to see a familiar face approach him and extend his hand in greeting.

Sherlock stared for a moment. He recognised the face immediately. "Mister Strapped - yes." He did not shake the hand offered but looked at his watch. Molly had called him. She had found something curious about the autopsy on the cab driver.

"Er Straite." The man said and coughed a little uncomfortably. "Rupert Straite. I was with-"

"-Formerly with Lestrade, I remember. Watson has instructed me to apologise whenever I mess up a name, a damned bothersome thing I don't have the patience for." Sherlock blinked. "Did I just say that last bit aloud?"

Straite scowled a little, but his mood seemed unaffected. "Er, yes, quite all right."

And the man was still staring.

Sherlock had nothing else to offer in the way of conversation and was practically chewing at the bit to leave, and not hiding his efforts to side-step a little, hoping the man would finally leave him alone. Plus the man seemed to be staring at him with an expression Sherlock could not quickly place. It was a similar look Molly sometimes got, or that other one – the waiter at Angelo's who wore too much cheap cologne and hair gel, and who lingered at his table with mind numbing small talk whenever he came in alone.

But a few of Watson's lessons had stuck and Sherlock (although unable to completely disguise his irritation), asked "Is there something else Mister Straite?"

Straite however saved Sherlock the trouble of finding a way to be polite when he really didn't want to by asking "About that murder, Mister Holmes, you know, the one over on-"

"Yes, there are some leads which I am in a hurry to pursue." Sherlock hoped it was enough of a hint to send the fellow on his way but the guy seemed to be shifting from one foot to the other.

"Well, I've got some ideas about it if you'd care to sit and have a beer with me?"

Sherlock stared now, a small frown over his eyes, digesting the words. "Perhaps you might text them to me. Give me your phone and I'll enter in my number."

Straite ignored the request and stammered. "Um, I hate the things. Don't carry one. Please, Mister Holmes, have a drink with me. I really have some things I need to say."

The man's words were a jumble in his brain until he put them in order as to their possible meaning – and then the meaning behind the meaning. Sherlock tilted his head as the most likely possibility occurred to him. "Are you..." But Sherlock stumbled a bit over the words, a rare event. However he had been wrong before. Not often but it did happen. "Are you asking me...out...is this a request for a...for a...a date?" Sherlock could see no obvious signs that the man was gay, but then not everyone's appearance was an indicator of their sexuality. Some hid it very well.

Straite cleared his throat and shoved his hands in his pockets, seemingly a little surer of himself now. "Yes, Mister Holmes - Sherlock. Yes I am asking you out on a date."

"So your request to discuss the case is just a ruse – a poor one I might add – so that I will go out with you?"

"Er, yes."

"Your goal is to have a sexual relationship with me?"

Straite blushed to the roots of his hair to hear it so bluntly put. "Erm, well, that's always...er...the preferred outcome, perhaps, after a time at least, um, eventually, well, yes, yes."

"I understand now. No thank you."

Straite's posture lost its uncertain slouch. "I think you'll find me a good mate, Sherlock. I know how to treat a man you know. And you're, I know you're not seeing anyone. It must get lonely I think, always being alone, and you're..." Straite swallowed thickly and Sherlock did not fail to note it. "You're so, so..."

Patience at an end - "I am not alone. I sleep alone." Sherlock clarified. "Not the same thing at all. Please excuse me, Mister Straite I'm now out of time."

Straite was left standing alone and looking after Sherlock Holmes, a sad hunger in his eyes. "You're so bloody gorgeous."

XXX

Having made his excuses to Mary's aunt about dinner, Watson entered his flat. Sherlock was still out. "Damn." After leaving Mycroft it had suddenly become very urgent to see his friend and make sure he was all right. Watson had dialed his phone a few times without getting an answer. "Damn it Sherlock, pick up."

He paced the flat, heard Misses Hudson down below vacuuming and called down the stairs. "Misses Hudson, have you seen Sherlock?"

"Not since you and he went off this morning John. Is something wrong?"

I hope not. "No, no, just checking. His phone might be off."

"Oh." Then she was at the bottom of the stairs looking up. "But someone did come by today, asking about him. Needing help on some sort of case – a domestic situation I think."

A case that would bore Sherlock and one he would have rejected almost immediately. "But no one else?"

"No. I told him to knock on your door but he said neither of you were home, so he left."

"I see. Thank you Misses Hudson." No help there.

Just then the door opened and he recognised Sherlock's steps on the stairs. A let go with a lung full of tense air he didn't realise he'd even been holding in. "Sherlock?" He said when the detective entered the flat through the open door.

"John." Sherlock took a seat on the couch without removing his coat. He sat with his fingers steeple-ed and his eyes looking over at the wall by the window. Not at John at all.

"Are you all right?"

Sherlock closed his eyes and did not answer.

John walked over to him and crouched down on his haunches. "You don't look all right." Now that John was closer he noticed the red spots in Sherlock's cheeks while the rest of him was as pale as death. "Have you been running? That's no good, Sherlock, your ribs are still healing never mind that bump."

John pressed a hand against his friend's forehead and although Sherlock flinched for once he didn't protest. "No fever." John frowned. "Headache?"

"Yes."

John stood and went to the kitchen cupboard, removing aspirin and pouring water into a clean glass. "Thought so."

When he turned back around Sherlock had his head in both hands, and was running his fingers through his disheveled curls. He seemed to be curling up on himself, with his legs jammed together fiercely and is shoulders hunched as though in pain. "Jesus, Sherlock, you really look awful. I think you need some proper rest." John offered his friend the water and pills but Sherlock did not right away reach for them. "That at least since you refuse to go back to the hospital-"

"Take me back."

John had heard his friend's whisper, but just barely. "What did you say?"

"Take me back to the hospital. Get me an MRI."

John set the glass aside and sat down beside his friend. "You had another episode didn't you? What happened?" He took Sherlock's left hand in his own and held it, Sherlock even letting him. Taking his pulse at the same time, John sucked in a breath. Sherlock's heart was hammering like a drum. "Tell me what happened."

Sherlock shook his head. "I don't know. I was on my way to Bart's to talk to Molly about...something..." He squeezed his eyes shut as though the very knowledge would come forth through his pores if he only tried hard enough. "About...I can't remember but then, I was elsewhere, standing in an alleyway. I don't even know how long I stood there before I noticed. I don't know what's happening to me, I feel, I feel..."

John spoke, his voice as encouraging as he could make it. And as gentle. "What? What do you feel Sherlock?"

Sherlock swallowed, rubbed his face once more and then let his hands drop to his lap, linking his fingers together. John noted the tremor in his fingers when he did so. Sherlock shook his head again. "I..."

Sherlock turned his face to him John could also see water pooling on the bottom lids of the man's eyes, a sight so rare it made his own heart pound hard in his chest. "What, Sherlock? Please tell me. Let me help you. Whatever it is I'll do whatever I can to help you. Just tell me. How do you feel?"

Sherlock blinked once but got the word out, almost choking on it.

"Terrified."

XXX

Part 4 asap


	4. Part 4

The Glass Heart Part 4

XXX

Watson looked at the attending Neurologist and his radiation man with some incredulity. "How can that be possible?" John asked. "He's been displaying some very disturbing mental confusion and memory loss. You're telling me there is nothing to indicate the cause?" He hadn't meant to almost yell the last bit but if he had been worried before, now he was downright frantic.

The Neurologist, a Doctor Greenwood, cleared his throat and looked across his desk as the visiting physician. "Doctor Watson, I wish I had something tangible to report to you, but myself and Doctor Lawrence-" he indicated the fellow physician with a tip of his head "-have been unable to locate any physical counter-indications in your friend's brain on the MRI. As far as it can be determined, there are no abnormalities what-so-ever. Sherlock Holmes's brain appears normal. Now..." he leaned forward in a cautionary manner, "as a doctor you yourself know that does not mean there isn't a problem. There may be an aberration, some sort of injury, but merely one that cannot be successfully imaged. And as I'm sure you are already aware, sometimes there simply are no concrete answers."

"Yes, I'm sorry I...I understand." John Watson nodded his head. "I'm sorry for my outburst."

Doctor Greenwood cleared his throat. "Er, have you considered that there may be a, ahem, some chemical involved in what's been happening?"

Watson hated to admit it but yes the thought had crossed his mind more than once. It was no secret Sherlock had been a drug user at one time. "His brother assures me that Sherlock has been clean for many years." But Watson knew well enough that didn't mean the detective wasn't experimenting again.

"Well, perhaps the best person to take this up with is...Mister Holmes himself?" Greenwood gently suggested.

Watson assumed that was Greenwood's way of saying that Holmes needed alternative help; a psychiatrist, maybe even a drug counselor. "Yes, thank you for your services doctors. It is most appreciated."

Lawrence, not perhaps agreeable with the way Mycroft had made several phone calls and bullied both physicians into abandoning their daily schedules to help out a man about whom neither of them could now file a report, simply glared a bit as Watson made his way to the door. Watson understood their frustration but Sherlock, as Mycroft had made perfectly clear, was to be protected.

XXX

"We need to do a drug screening."

Molly looked up from her glass slides, a small frown between her brows. "What?" Watson had come to her lab at Bartholomew's and was now standing within her personal space. Molly always found it a bit uncomfortable but in a good way when Sherlock stood so close to her and yet showed no romantic interest what-so-ever and yet, when Watson was this close by, it made her uneasy. But then when John came to her, it was almost always because there was a problem with Sherlock himself.

"You mean..?" and John nodded.

"I'm not sure but we need to find a way to get a blood sample without him knowing."

Molly almost laughed. "Without Sherlock knowing? The man hardly sleeps how in the world can we?"

John shrugged. "I suppose I could, you know, accidently injure him somehow...wipe up any spilled blood, get it to you?"

"You mean puncture him with your fork over dinner? Accidently leave some glass on the kitchen floor? He'll never fall for it."

Watson sighed. "I know. He'd never believe I would be so clumsy with a metal object and I'm always the one cleaning up broken glasses or food."

Molly said. "Well, however you manage it, I'll need a good sample you know; it can't be just a smear on a napkin."

John nodded. "I'll do what I can."

Molly stopped him before he left the room. "John -"

She had sounded almost distraught. "Yes?" She looked distraught. "Are you all right?"

Molly fingered the pens in her pocket, rattling them around. "He lies to everyone all the time and I know it's almost always to do with a case or something terribly important, at least it is to him, and the lying infuriates me but all the same...I just...I hate lying to him back, John, I just...I just hate it. It's just different when it's...Sherlock. He's different than other people. It matters so much more. You know?"

He nodded. "I know." It was an enigma John had observed before. Sherlock lied when he thought it was necessary to solve a case, even to his closest friends he would lie, but somehow-or-other the man inspired deep loyalties in others. Perhaps Mycroft was correct in that Sherlock had his vulnerabilities and deep down others instinctively knew where those vulnerabilities lay.

On some deeper level, dwelling ever deeper than in others, Sherlock could be hurt, perhaps irreparably.

XXX

It was Sherlock himself who provided the sample of blood, astounding John by tripping the next morning over the carpet – an unheard-of clumsiness for the normally gazelle-like movements of the man. Sherlock was so light on his feet he moved like a ghost. To see him trip and stumble, hitting his head on the corner of the coffee table was so shocking John immediately knew it had to be related to whatever was happening in his brain.

John scrambled to the kitchen for a wad of paper towels to staunch the flow of blood from the small cut on Sherlock's forehead. That was the thing about head wounds - they bled so freely and heavily. Even with a small cut it seemed like the blood was never going to let up.

But eventually it did and John cleaned it up and applied a thick sterile bandage.

Sherlock appeared unusually subdued and sat on the couch with his elbows resting on boney knees.

John spent a few minutes cleaning up the small stain on the coffee table and disposing of the soiled towels when Sherlock asked 'Do you think I may be losing my mind?"

John sucked in a breath, the question was asked so matter-of-factly; so Sherlock-like, it threw him mentally back a bit. "No. No, Sherlock, you're not losing your mind."

Sherlock smiled at his friend, but there was sadness in it. "You're an awful liar John." He said "but a good friend."

He tried to keep his answer light-hearted "That's what friends are for, remember?"

Sherlock nodded. His eyes never left his friend when he next said "Whatever happens, John, I love you and I want you to know that."

John's hands stilled AND were almost turned to stone on the floor. He slowly stood up, having no idea how to answer. He frowned, searching his friend's face for any deception or sign of confusion but Sherlock appeared perfectly calm; perfectly himself. "I...yes, I...think I understand what you mean."

Sherlock frowned now. "And yet you appear confused."

John cleared his throat and wiped his hands on his trousers. Not his usual custom but he feared leaving the room right that moment, even to escape what to him had suddenly become a stifling emotional atmosphere. Blowing out a breath between puffed out cheeks he decided to take the bull by the horns and approached his friend, sitting down on his haunches right before him and asking. "I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Do you mean you..." he waved a casual hand in the air as though it would clarify his meaning "love me or that you...um, actually love me?"

Now Sherlock appeared confused. "Did you not understand me, John? I used plain English."

But John raised a palm. "Yes, yes you did but now I don't think you understand. What I am asking is: do you love me or are you..." he had to take a full breath to say the rest because it was such a huge, huge deal, asking this question –"are you in love with me?"

Sherlock's face didn't twitch. He was just as calm and collected as a moment before. "What's the difference?"

Now John wasn't certain whether Sherlock was being serious or fucking with him. "Um, well, a big one actually." Suddenly he felt very much like a parent trying to explain the birds and the bees to their blooming child. It was unexpectedly bizarre, even when dealing with a man the likes of Sherlock Holmes. "With one, there's friendship and concern, it's, you know, caring, togetherness and, well, love. With the other there's the usual -er- expectation of –ahem – some...physical stuff, too."

"Physical..."stuff" ?" Despising inaccurate speech Sherlock repeated the inexact word as though it were a barnacle on the back of the English language.

"Yes. Stuff."

"You mean of course sex."

"Yes, Sherlock, I mean sex."

Sherlock nodded. "I have never manifested any expectations of you."

John narrowed his eyes, not sure whether Sherlock had just insulted his sexual abilities or not. He dropped his head to his chest. "Well, yes, I understand that but- " Then he looked up at his friend, sitting there so calmly with his steeple-ed fingers aside one perfectly molded cheek-bone and the stained white bandage stopping up the blood from his fresh head wound. It was such an odd little meeting they were having.

Still not absolutely certain that Sherlock wasn't putting him on John asked "Wait a minute, are you, have you...?"

Sherlock appeared puzzled by Watson's struggle. "Surely I've made my meaning perfectly clear? I don't fathom your confusion."

"Are you...I mean...have you always...do you like...men?" How had he missed it all these years?

Sherlock sighed as though dealing with one of the great unwashed brains he had to deal with every day. "I don't like anyone, John, and they certainly don't like me. Oh Molly has made her feelings quite plain, she would like to go to bed with me at the soonest possible opportunity but I am...not interested in her."

"She's a friend, Sherlock, isn't she? She's at least that? A friend?"

Sherlock seemed to have to think about it. "I suppose she is, yes."

"Well at least we've got that cleared up." John stood and walked away a bit, needing to move around, to shake up and sort through all he had just heard from Sherlock's mouth pertaining to him. "Look, Sherlock, as a friend, I love you too but I am engaged to be married and-"

When John stopped speaking Sherlock asked "I am aware. I am not asking you to break your engagement. Mary is a perfectly acceptable potential mate."

"Then what are you asking me?"

Sherlock broke his statue-like pose and leaned back against the couch cushions. "Nothing. I am making no request of you. I merely came to a realisation a short time ago and wished to convey the sentiment."

John breathed a silent sigh of relief. "So you don't want to have sex with me?"

Sherlock stared at him as though the man had lost his mind. "Always with you everything seems to come down to sex. You must have a raging libido John. When in this whole conversation did I mention wanting sex with you?"

Watson felt relief again and, oddly, the thinnest film of disappointment. "Okay, all right, so long as we're clear."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "It has always been perfectly clear to me but sometimes I despair of your powers of reason."

John suddenly remembered he needed to get Sherlock's blood to Molly. "Listen I have to go out for a few hours. Will you be all right until I get back?"

"Of course, I'm not a child."

John began to sleeve into his coat and when Sherlock walked down the hall to the bathroom he stuffed his pockets full of the blood soaked paper napkins and slipped out the door, hailing a cab.

XXX

John waited patiently and Molly finally looked up from her little machines. "John, you know this could take days to do a complete work-up, so you might want to wait at home."

John uncrossed his legs but kept his mental fingers crossed. He was actually hoping for positive results because that meant whatever was wrong with Sherlock could be undone. If it was brain damage...he hated to consider it. It was too terrible a thought. Such an amazing brain as that should never be harmed. It should be nurtured, protected, fed and cared for...but never harmed. Is there anything obvious right now? I mean...well, you know what I mean."

Molly shook her head. "No, so far, no sign of known recreational drugs. But there's a host of them that take longer to pin down and you've been here for hours so you may as well go home."

John knew that was Molly's way of telling him to get the bloody hell out of her hair. He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry."

"That's all right." she looked at him with world worn brown eyes. "I'm worried too."

XXX

John had no more than stepped out the door than Sherlock had become ensconced in a nightmare. He was dreaming of course but the talk he had had with John was the culprit and his dreams took on a violent and sexual slant with John's hands on him, invading him, whispering dirty secrets in his ears, the man's lips on his skin, sucking, kissing, biting while John's heavier body weighed down on his stomach and chest and strong fingers prodded and poked into his most private physical...

"Stuff..." John was saying, "God I love your stuff, Sherlock. You're so beautiful, so fucking sexy, so delectably touchable. I've wanted you for so long and I just can't wait anymore lov'." Moaning ensued, a lot of moaning and more whisperings until Sherlock shook his head to rid himself of the vulgar noises and the feel of John's sticky sweat. John didn't sweat much but perhaps he did when he was enjoying coitus? Sherlock did not know and he knew he should not be made to know it now because John should not be touching him like this. John was kind, he would never hurt him, take advantage of him while he was ill.

"John." Sherlock whispered, wanting it to stop but unable to form any word beyond his flat-mate's name. Even when under attack he reached for John, even when it was John who's hands were doing the hurting, and that made no sense either. "John, please..."

And because he had his eyes shut and could not open them he did not see John's hand come down across his face with such strength that it snapped his head to side and left a deep sting in its wake. John then slapped his other cheek even harder and Sherlock knew he had to shut up now. He had somehow made John very furious with him.

So John's hands, his gentle doctor's hands that had never hurt him before (except for that time when he had come back to John from the dead and John had been so angry then, so angry that Sherlock had regretted coming back in the way he had and so silently vowed never to hurt John like that again), with-drew and John left the bedroom because Sherlock heard the footfalls retreat with a soft cursing above them and the outer door downstairs tightly closing.

Sherlock lay there unable to move, still caught in the nightmare of John's rough love-making. Why would John do that to him? This was a mystery, and a terrible one. John was his friend. It made no sense, no sense! "John...I don't understand..."

Mary had pointed it out to him, though, hadn't she? "You don't understand human nature at all do you?"

She had of course been correct. All his years of observing people had not clarified what motivated them to any useful degree. He felt as outside of them as the rain was outside the window, or as the storm cloud on a distant hill. Most of the time he appreciated his outside-of-them-ness, most of the time it was a protection, it helped him in his investigations to not be emotionally involved, to not be emotional.

But, other times, a few times, times that blew across the landscape of his isolated existence, being so removed from the others hurt. It was at those times he felt the most alone, when it was pointed out to him in stark images and in the faces of those around him that he was not the same.

But John had come into his life and made him understand that although he was still different, different was okay. John was okay with him and his differences. John admired the different-ness of him.

So he had grown to love John. However he understood love, and he was certain he understood it more correctly than most; he knew he felt that way about John Watson.

Except for now, when he could still feel the sting on his cheek and the dirty after-sensations of the demanding fingers that had been at his genitals and their rough treatment of the skin of his body. This was the most painful thing he could remember. Not even the crowbar on his back had felt demoralizing. The crowbar had been a blunt truth and brought clear injury and pain. It sent only sensation and concealed nothing beneath its intent.

But this was an altogether different and insidious instrument. This caused a pain he could not prepare himself for, directly identify nor battle against. It bit into his pores like a corrosive. It caused him to thrust his hips off the sheet in attempts to dislodge the sickness it left behind. The hands and the fingers ever probing him, touching him in ways and where's that left him breathless with grief. It was as the way a sharp knife might slice him open exposing his innards to his own naked eyes and to the world.

This was a pain he had never known.

And then another door slammed shut and feet were on the stairs and his bedroom door was open and then John's hands were back on his face, were pulling at his eyelids and checking his pulse and then he was demanding "Sherlock wake up!" John was shaking him in fact and slapping his face once more. "Sherlock, Sherlock, wake up. Jesus Christ Sherlock, what have you taken? What the hell kind of shit have you ingested now?"

Sherlock could feel the cruelty bringing him back to a conscious state, only a few more seconds and he would be able to rise and defend himself.

Sherlock suddenly sat bolt upright and pushed John Watson off himself, scrambling to his feet and hitting the wall with his back, using its solid structure to support shaking legs. "Stay away from me John."

And when John moved to intercept him Sherlock screamed "Stay away!" Sherlock felt the dream trying to take him down again and his legs almost gave way but he managed to upright himself again and saw the small movement of Watson as he tried to get closer, his hands raised in supplication, as though trying to calm a maddened stag. "John if you come near me I shall be forced to take any and all action necessary to defend myself."

John looked genuinely confused and a little frightened. "Sherlock, it's me, John. What the hell is going on? I think you must have a fever." And yet Sherlock hadn't felt overly warm. John had found him moaning in his sleep and thinking he was in the midst of a bad dream had tried to awaken his friend but failing to do so. Sherlock's irises had been dilated, a clear indicator of narcotic ingestion. "Sherlock, come on now, you're not right in the head. Just let me help you."

John made a move toward him and Sherlock actually flinched. He flinched and then snarled. "Don't touch me!" He said. "Don't ever touch me." Sherlock whispered and then suddenly he could not hold his own weight anymore, sliding down the wall until his backside hit the floor. He stared up at John as though at an apparition and then shook his head and whispered to the doctor "I don't understand."

John decided to sit down opposite his friend, but further away than he normally would. Sherlock was calm again and he'd like to keep him that way. "What? What don't you understand Sherlock? What don't you understand?"

Sherlock closed his eyes and John was startled to see a few silent tears run down the man's cheeks. Astonished to see them. Sherlock never cried – never - about anything. "Sherlock..." John bit his lip, truly worried now, truly in fear for his friend, "...what is it you don't understand?"

Sherlock turned his face to his flat-mate and stared at him as though he was seeing him for the first time, as a man awoken from a nightmare only to find the truly fearful thing was out in the waking world. "Why would you hurt me John?" John was now, in that moment, a case, a puzzle, a conundrum to be solved. "Why would you hurt me like that?"

Watson could hardly breathe suddenly so thick was the air in the room. "What are talking about?"

But Sherlock was glaring daggers at him, his chest heaving and his normally ice-blue rational eyes dark and now angry – so angry! He stood up, far too fast and nearly keeled over but strode passed John as though he were now of no importance what-so-ever.

Leading John into the sitting room Sherlock began to speak, the words pouring out of him as when he had solved a crucial element in an on-going case, the very particle that would lead him to the truth."Stupid, I have been so stupid. All this time I had thought that whenever or if ever it happened it would be an exercise of the mind, a controlled decision based on fact and reason, something pleasant, even pleasurable perhaps but not this. Not this!"

John watched, frightened now, as Sherlock paced and twisted in the small confines of the sitting room. He manner transformed into that of a caged animal that once it has tasted freedom suddenly is lost in the frightening enormity of the wild world and so longs for the cage where it had spent the whole of its previous life.

"...pain and want and revulsion and being...invaded by it all." Sherlock's mouth twisted in distaste. "A hundred systems in my body - in my thoughts John! – In my thoughts all conspiring against me."

John stood perfectly still, trying to be the calm in the storm. Trying to be an anchor for his friend should he need one. "Conspiring to what? Sherlock, I don't understand."

Sherlock looked at the doctor before him as though seeing him and his true nature for the first time. He reached out two hands cupped in furious supplication and yelled "Don't you understand yet? How could you not understand?"

John shook his head, feeling way out of his depth in the face of his friend's anguish. "Please just telling me what's going on? You say I've hurt you. How have I hurt you?"

Sherlock shook his own head then as though his friend, he had just discovered, was a fool like all the rest. "It's so simple – my god – so bloody simple and you don't get it? To make me love you against my will of course!" As though it were the simplest of things set out to the simplest of beings.

Sherlock then stopped, staring at him as though he expected John to derive all understanding from the one cryptic comment. Watson felt like throwing up. "What? To...to make you love me? Against your-? How-how could I do that, Sherlock, why would I do that?"

Sherlock stared at him, some appearance of calm returning but Watson suspected it was only that – appearance. "I am not a follower of my body and I shall not Ever. Be. That!" Sherlock spat out the last word as though poison on his tongue. "I shall never yield to this unkindness you call love. It is a lie and a cruelty and un-intelligent, yes un-intelligent. I will not let it destroy what I am." He held fists clenched bloodless at the sides of his head. "I will bloody not allow it!"

And then he collapsed.

XXX

When next Sherlock saw light, it was cut in half by a shadow looming over him. But there was no fear now. There was only confusion and the cool sense of his sweat upon his own over-heated body. He was sprawled up against the wall and someone was laying a wet cloth on his forehead. When he opened his eyes fully...

Of course, John held the cloth. Once his own could focus well enough Sherlock frowned at the distress in his friend's eyes. "How are you feeling?" asked the man with the gentle hands.

Sherlock had a bit of trouble making his tongue work. But finally it did. "A bit shaky. Help me get up."

But John rested a determined palm against his chest. "Not on your life. You're staying right where you are until they get here."

Sherlock frowned. He looked up at his friend. "Forgive me, John."

John had the kindest eyes he had ever known. "There's nothing to forgive my friend. You're ill."

"John I have a serious question."

"What is it?"

"Exactly what happened?"

"I'm not sure, but we're going to solve this together, all right?" It would figure that Sherlock would turn out to be the biggest mystery they had tackled in months.

"John I am decidedly uncomfortable on the floor. May I sit on the couch?"

It took a few minutes of help to get Sherlock to stand steadily enough to move him there. Watson was extra careful not to touch him too much during the journey. Once Sherlock was settled on the cushions, John boiled water and made him a strong cup of coffee. Normally a stimulant after a second head injury would not be recommended but this was a special case. Sherlock was a special case, as he always was.

And if there were indeed drugs in his system, a stimulant was what was needed. John pulled up a chair, not too close, and sat down to watch him drink it.

John took a deep breath and spoke softly. "I don't...hope to completely understand just what happened here Sherlock, but whatever it was - I wish you would talk to me."

Sherlock looked across the small space that separated them but it may as well have been a chasm, so distant did he feel from the man. Not in heart but in being. John was going to marry and leave and Sherlock was going to stay behind and be the same man he had always been. Sherlock felt weak and foolish for wishing it but he couldn't help himself. "I remember yelling..." He frowned. "I think." He so very much wished John would stay.

"Well, you often do that." John wondered if it would be bad or good to remind Sherlock of some of the things he had said. It may have been mere mental confusion, the remnants of a nightmare...there were more possibilities than...

Sherlock was staring at him intensely. "I shall miss you John."

John frowned a little. "I'm not going anywhere. You know that."

But you are leaving all the same. Sherlock tried to sort through his thoughts, his organised, exacting brain now feeling so jumbled and uncertain. Surely it could not have been John who had come to him in his dreams. But of course it had been a dream. Simply a terrible, terrible dream and John had not really hurt him. John of the gentle hands and the worried eyes and the love he had unfailingly showed him every day and in each aspect of his life since they had met.

John could not do those things. John would never do those things. Never. "Please forgive my outburst." Sherlock said even though he hardly remembered it. He only knew that the person who had been in this room was John. Not in the bedroom. Not hurting him. Not physically ever hurting him. John, a healer, was too kind for that.

Yet his heart felt bruised and broken. And his trickster emotions were welling up again and he could feel the betrayal of the water on his cheeks flowing once more. John however, was not repulsed by the tears. His eyes were as ever kind, and Sherlock took comfort in them while John looked at him with such worry and such sorrow. It would appear John was his conduit for comfort as well Sherlock thought.

Sherlock offered the only deduction he had come up with thus far. "I believe I was dreaming. Perhaps dream-walking."

"That must have been one hell of a dream." John said. They both knew that Sherlock had never done so during all their time together as flat-mates but for now the lie was useful. For the moment it allowed them the contentment of ignorance.

Sherlock nodded. "A terrible one." Then his eyebrows scrunched up. "Who's coming?"

"Sorry?"

"You said 'until they're here'. Who is coming?"

In the distance the artificial and regular wailing of an ambulance could be heard. "Them." John answered. "You need to be in a hospital."

Sherlock tried to divorce his mind from the heaving emotions inside but the traitorous chemicals of love refused to stay their course, and so Sherlock did what he often did in the face of those specific things he did not comprehend – he momentarily left the room. His body stayed but his mind went elsewhere.

Watson recognised it and took a crossed-legged seat on the floor next to Sherlock to await the medical technicians.

When it came to those affairs of the heart that were not mere chemical reactions Sherlock, who projected an aura of supreme confidence and intelligence, was nothing but a child. No, John shook his head, not a child – he was an innocent. Not an innocent of knowledge of course but of experience. Was Sherlock capable of loving? John had witnessed it himself as had others. Sherlock had saved the lives of his friends more than once and not as some dry intellectual course of action simply to solve the puzzle. John was confident he had done it because he had a heart, because he loved them.

Did Sherlock know what it was to be loved? John hoped so. He hoped his words of help had gone home because yes, he did love the man, not in the romantic sense but certainly, certainly more than friendship or mere room-mates that together solved crimes. Much more than that.

He heard footsteps on the stairs. Throwing caution to the wind John reached out one hand and cupped his friend's chin. Sherlock did not flinch or draw away but came back into himself. God he looks tired.

"Look, Sherlock, I know you're going through a personal crisis right now, maybe physical, maybe because of your head injury - I don't know...yet. But for a reason I don't understand and you won't explain, you refuse to confide in me and you know what? – fine. That's fine, it's – I suppose it's really none of business I guess even though I am your best friend and flat-mate of over two years and we've been through hell together and back and then back again."

John took a breath and forced some calm because about this part he was not angry, he was scared. "But I beg of you please do not resort to solving it by chemical means which as you are painfully aware is no solution at all. The ambulance fellows are here, by the way."

Sherlock said "Do I have to go to the hospital?" He sounded weary of the idea already.

John nodded firmly. "Yes."

When the men brought in a stretcher, Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I am not lying on that thing. I will walk."

John nodded. "Fine. But I'm going to help you."

Before he was escorted away Sherlock leaned in and, taking rest in the feel of John's strong hands on his waist and shoulder spoke earnestly into John's right ear. "Whatever happens, John, I would not break my word to you. I have not been using again."

John turned back, hope returning to his expression. "Then let me help you? Go willingly to the hospital."

Sherlock answered without answering. "You have helped." He said, sounding more tired than John had ever known. "You always help."

XXX

John received the call when he was on his way with Mary to the hospital. It was Mycroft, his voice even colder than usual.

"Sherlock left the ambulance just as it pulled into The London. Thought you should know. Congratulations on your latest failure to protect my brother. Perhaps you should consi-"

John cut Mycroft off mid-sentence. "Asshole!"

Angry and sad at his friend's betrayal, John closed his phone and looked at Mary whose face was all questions. "He's gone again."

A text came through and John opened his phone again.

I KEPT MY PROMISE AND WENT ALL THE WAY TO THE HOPSITAL JOHN. DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME. I HAVE A CASE TO SOLVE FIRST.

SH 

XXX

Part 5 asap


	5. Final Chapter

The Glass Heart Part 5 and final chapter.  
XXX

While Molly gathered her notes, John sat slumped on a stool against the counter top. Suddenly Mary looked over at him, her face alert. “It always happens when he’s alone.” 

Molly lifted her head from her microscope and exchanged looks with John who then looked at Mary. “What?”

“The...episodes or whatever, they always happen when Sherlock’s alone.” Mary repeated and then shrugged. She was seated on a stool, resting aching feet that she had been on most of the day. “Well it might mean something. Seems a bit odd that we’ve only ever seen Sherlock after the seizures or whatever they are.”

John suddenly felt like he’d had his head up his own arse. “That’s true. Yes.” You idiot! Important fact just bounced off your head by someone other than the person – or second person –who ought to have noted it first, namely you.

Molly retrieved something from a file folder on her desk. “John - look. I’m not sure if this means anything either but it’s something I discovered about the cab driver. I was going to give it to Sherlock but then he never showed up.”

“Oh? What day was that?”

“Um, about five or six days ago.” She held the paper out to him. “It’s probably nothing but the cab driver was a user.”

“He was? I thought-“

“I didn’t perform the autopsy on him, that was another pathologist but I don’t understand how they could have missed it. The cab driver had none of the usual narcotics I would expect to see in a habitual user. No cocaine, heroin or even alcohol in his system but when I did a second drug screen for Sherlock-”

“-I thought he had dropped that angle?”

“He did but called me the next day and asked if I would do it for him. I guess he changed his mind.”

John was paying keen attention now, suddenly glad that Sherlock, even in his current mentally misaligned state, had decided to ignore his advice. “And what did you find?”

“He had a bit of a cocktail in his system, almost nothing in the blood but what was weird was - I mean he had the proteins on his hair, not in – on, and in the muscles beneath his scalp.”

“His scalp?” Watson had never heard of proteins accumulating in the tissues of the scalp. “Are you saying that was where he had been injecting himself?”

Molly looked at him, her face as puzzled as his own. “Yes but...but no one would ever inject there would they? Not normally I mean. That’s what was so weird.”

Mary asked “What drugs did you find?”

“Well, that’s also a bit odd. I’ve found very small traces of Ketamine but much larger remnants of Aphetamine.”

“Those aren’t normal recreational drugs.” John said.

“Aphetamine is but it’s not easy to get.” Molly said. “In some circles in Eastern Europe it’s in regular use but a part time cab driver in Central London? It’s not as though these are all that easy to come by here and a regular drug user or even a new addict would stick to what’s easily obtainable.”

“And injected in his scalp.” John suddenly wondered “What gave you the idea to look there?”

“I was doing a manual –that’s checking the body with my fingers for swelling or lumps beneath the skin – and I found a swelling on his head, so I shaved off the hair and found what looked like an infection that turned out to be an injection sight. He was probably using dirty needles.”

As she explained in his mind John went through the list of symptomatic side effects associated with Ketamine. The list was still there from medical school like a page from a book: delirium, altered hearing, blurred vision, tachycardia...and those for Aphetamine: terrific swings of mood like elation and euphoria often followed by disphoria, anxiety, and the drugs recreational use - increased libido, which was usually accompanied by feelings of grandiosity, then irritability or repetitive or obsessive behaviors...and the one that made John’s own heart race - an analgesic effect. 

And then would come the crash...lethargy, depression, the list seemed endless but the ones that popped into memory with stark foreboding: fatigue, anxiety, lucid dreaming, delusions.

It almost perfectly described the symptoms he had been seeing in Sherlock for the last two weeks. “Oh my God...” What was even worse than the idea that Sherlock had lied to him and was once again using was the possibility that he was not lying and was being fed the drugs without his knowledge by a person or persons unknown.

“If the site had not got infected, would you have found the needle mark?”

Molly shook her head. “Not likely. Not without shaving his head first and there’d be no reason to do that normally.”

John could only think of one person who had that sort of access to Sherlock and whom Sherlock would trust enough to allow him to get that close (even if he didn’t like him).

“Mycroft!” John barked into the man’s answering service. “You’d better answer this goddamn phone call or I swear to God I’ll expose every dirty deed you’ve ever done in the last two years to the nearest friendly news-reporter and a few more on top of it and I know about quite a few thanks to Sherlock’s little confidences. Do you hear me you arrogant git? Call me back right now.”

XXX

Mycroft was not pleased. “If I was attempting to influence my brother I would not endanger his life doing so. I may be an arrogant git to you but hurting Sherlock is not on my agenda. I suppose you have no idea where he’s gone?”

“I thought your minions were keeping track of him?”

“Even my network has its limitations, particularly when going up against a determined Sherlock Holmes.”

“What if we work together?” Although John really had no idea where to begin looking. Sherlock mentioned working on the case. Could it be as simple as the detective paying a visit to Lestrade?

The subtle sneer in Mycroft’s answer was all he needed to hear. “I think it best you stay out of it altogether Doctor Watson. You’ve brought Sherlock enough trouble as it is.”

Watson hung up on Mycroft and hailed a cab. “New Scotland Yard please as fast as you can.”

XXX

Lestrade appeared very concerned. “And you have no idea where he might have gone?”

Watson shook his head, feeling useless. “But we’ve discovered some things.”

“Like what?”

“Like that cabbie accident may have been no accident. Molly performed a second autopsy and the man was drugged.”

“You mean he was using? Seems like a plausible cause for an accident to me.”

“But Sherlock didn’t think so at the time. Look, I know it’s almost nothing to go on but how often has Sherlock’s instincts been wrong?” John could hear Sherlock’s exasperated voice in his head It’s not instinct!

Lestrade. “So he thought the cabbie hit him on purpose –why? If he wanted to kill Sherlock there are more full proof ways.”

“Maybe he only wanted to hurt him, incapacitate him for a while?”

“But what for?”

That’s where John’s own instincts – or deductions – came to a screeching halt. “I bloody wish I knew.” Then he remembered “Look, Molly Hooper said the first autopsy done on the cabbie seemed incomplete. Who might have had access to it? Maybe they have some ideas.”

Lestrade checked his computer. “That case was shuffled around a bit – landed on Straite’s desk same day it happened, the day before he transferred in fact.”

“Sergeant Straite?” The name was familiar. “We need to call him.”

Lestrade raised his finger. “Hang on - Straite might be on duty right now. I’ll get his Acting Inspector on the phone.” 

As Lestrade spoke John’s eyes roamed idly over the Inspector’s desk. His dress coat hung from a hook on the wall, his formal Inspector’s hat with its two diamond shaped insignia sat by a stack of papers. Beside that sat a much used glass of tepid looking water, the Inspector’s finger prints visible on the dirty surface. John’s eyes were struck by the glass and then returned to the hat, staring even harder at it. “Oh my god...” 

What was it Sherlock was always saying about looking at things from the correct way around? About shifting the theory to suit the facts? About not only looking but observing? ‘Observe: to notice or perceive something and register it as being significant.’ “Oh my god...”

 

Suddenly John knew what it was that Lestrade was about to say as he hung up the phone, his face thoughtful. “Straite quit his job almost two weeks back.”

 

John nodded. “I think Strait’s our man. I mean I suspect it - he might be a suspect at least. Here-” He fished out his phone and found a photo he had taken of the small square of paper that he and Sherlock had discussed that night in the cafe’. “I think we’ve all been looking at this the wrong way around, even Sherlock.” Watson froze the screen and turned the photo so the two and a half square centimeter of paper was no longer a square.

“It’s not a square,” Watson said “it’s a diamond.” 

XXX

Sherlock walked away from the hospital and turned down an alleyway, keeping a steady pace. When he found a secluded spot, he stopped and lit a cigarette. John would be furious if he knew he had started up again. But events being what they had lately been, a few cigarettes would hardly kill him. 

 

Sherlock did not know how much time he had hung out in the alleyway in the next block but one from the hospital, but it wasn’t long before his expected visitor showed up. Sherlock turned to face the shadow hanging out behind the neatly lined up dust bins, his head visible in the shadowed light, but the features obscured. 

 

Tucking his right hand in his pocket, Sherlock took a long drag on the cigarette in his left and then dropped it onto the alleyway, butting it out beneath the toe of his shoe. “I’ve been expecting you.”

 

Rupert Straite stepped out of the shadows, his service weapon drawn and aimed at the center of Sherlock’s chest. “Hello Sherlock.” Despite the gun pointed at his heart, the man did not appear upset at all. A trifle sad perhaps. 

Sherlock stared quizzically. Or was it love-struck? So hard to tell sometimes with emotions. They changed so quickly and manifested differently on every individual. But there was an undercurrent of something dangerous too and Sherlock knew he would need to tread carefully. He had encountered other enthusiastic and hopeful suitors of course but none like this man. “Rupert.”

Straite, gun still aimed steady and true never-the-less rubbed at tired eyes. “Do you believe in love at first sight Sherlock?”

 

“A notion perpetuated by romance novelists and lonely secretaries. Love is nothing more than chemical attractions disguised as devotion. Love is a lie and an ugliness. It flies in the face of reason and logic.”

 

Straite pursed sad lips. “Well I do. At least I believe in lust at first sight and-” He looked Sherlock up and down, “since the first minute I laid eyeballs on you I couldn’t get you outta’ my head. But I guess you figured that out now, eh?”

“I had my suspicions. That first time you came to my flat to return the evidence, I lost time, hours of time. A head injury may do that but I’ve experienced head injuries before and I have never lost nearly a whole day. At any rate it aroused my suspicions.” 

“Yeah, ‘course it would. You’re not stupid like your friend Watson are you? You know I saw you for the first time three years ago. Seen your picture in the paper now and again and at crime scenes of course. I watched you, all the time, and tried to learn from you...and then about you. Never spoke to ya’ though. Too shy back then I guess. Anyway I started collecting clippings from the paper – everything you ever did, all your cases, crime scene photos, photos of you...’specially photos of you. And then...well, eventually I guess I pretty well went arse over tea-kettle in love with you.”

 

“Should I be flattered?” Sherlock kept his voice level and cool but the memory of Straite’s invasive, vulgar hands all over him was becoming physical. The hair on his neck stood up and his stomach began to quiver. “Should you be?” 

 

At that Straite frowned. “Yeah, well time’s getting on so here-” Straite dug something out of his pocket and tossed it at Sherlock’s feet. “-I need you to inject yourself with that and use all of it, I don’t want you to be able to walk.” 

 

Sherlock bent over to retrieve it and nearly toppled to the ground from the lingering dizziness. He un-wrapped a small object from a white kerchief. A hypodermic. “No.”

Straite sighed. “You don’t understand, if you don’t inject yourself with that, I’m...I’m going to shoot John Watson.” Straite bit his lip. 

It seemed a weak threat. “I am not...John’s keeper.” Sherlock said simply.

 

Straite looked quizzical. “You two are room-mates. ‘Ave been for a long time. Everyone says you’re sleeping together.”

 

With a great sigh “Who’s everyone?” Sherlock said, and then decided to ask a question of his own. “What do you care anyway? Why does anybody care about me or what I do?”

 

“I care.” Straite said, anger rising again.

“Do you?” Sherlock asked tiredly and then abruptly changed his tone of voice, demanding angrily “Why? Why care about me?”

 

“What are you talking about? Bloody everybody cares – you’re Sherlock Holmes.”

 

“You know nothing about me.” Sherlock clutched his fist around the hypodermic and stared at it. “Doesn’t matter anyway....” he muttered, “Like you said I’m bloody Sherlock Holmes and I don’t understand...” 

“Don’t understand?” Straite shook his head, the conversation a little more muddled than he had expected. “Look, Sherlock, I need you to inject yourself. We have to leave.”

Sherlock stared down at the thing in his hands. It was a tiny needle and what was in it he could not guess but suspected it was more of the cocktail Straite had been feeding him all along. “To leave...?” He whispered.

But Straite overheard him. “Inject yourself or I’ll...I’ll shoot you.”

“You want to kill me now?”

“No, I don’t want to kill you, but if I have to, I’ll wound you a bit...and then inject you anyway.”

Sherlock kept his eyes on the hypodermic. “So you can what? Take me away? Torture me? Hurt me? I hardly care and I don’t need your narcotics for that. I’ve already been drugged by something much worse than this.”

 

Straite raised the gun, his hand shaking, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. “What do you mean? What drug?”

 

Sherlock made no move to inject the hypodermic. Not yet, it wasn’t time yet. He had things to do. “Love is my cancer; it is an invader of my body, it is my poison and my impending death. I want nothing more than to extract it –to tear it away, to excise it from my mind!”

 

Straite shook his head, his face a portrait of confusion. “What are you talking about? Are you talking about John Watson? You are, aren’t you? You’re in love with him.”

 

“I am...” Sherlock said, and then his knees started shaking. He was not certain he could stand much longer. “I am...I am only a liar Rupert.” He whispered. “A liar...n-nothing more.”

 

Straite blinked. “W-what? Look...” Rupert took careful aim but his hand shook and Sherlock wasn’t convinced the man would hit the intended target which, by his estimation, might end up being anything from his crotch to his left eye. “Shoot the damn needle or I’ll shoot you. Now!”

 

Sherlock’s face crumpled and he took up the syringe suddenly jamming it hard into his side. He felt the needle penetrate his skin and the cold of the drugs invading his abdomen. He violently threw the needle away from him, and they both heard it shatter on the pavement some meters away. “There. I have done that for you Rupert. It is my last compliance in this insanity in which you all willingly dwell – it is my final act as the joke you all call Sherlock Holmes so do what you will because I have ceased to care.”

 

Sherlock’s respirations slowed and yet his heart pounded. He broke out into a cold sweat. “You know what they say about me Rupert.” Sherlock’s let his head drop until his eyes fixed on the dirty pavement. The air was chilled and his fingers numb and when he spoke, all the anguish of the last few weeks spilled into his voice, swelling it with a sorrow so deep the world could not contain it. The words were full of pain and flew as bullets exploding in the air between them like cannon-fire. Tears fell from his eyes leaving his cheeks red and his eyes burning. “I know you know what they say about me.” Pain and grief gushed from between chattering teeth, the questions thick with emotion. “Don’t you?”

 

Straite’s hand was shaking at the sudden turn of the tide. Holmes in public seemed so aloof and above them all, a pure intellect - wrapped in a hauntingly beautiful physical form (one that invaded his dreams every night and fixed firmly in his thoughts whenever he wrapped his own hand around his cock) – a Holmes who looked down upon the pathetic swarms of gawkers that were naturally beneath them both. 

But this Sherlock, this live-and-in-person Sherlock was so startlingly emotional and seemed so...so sad. He had not ever witnessed this side of the man. “What? What do they say?” 

 

Sherlock sniffed and a single wrenching sob left his mouth and shot all the way across ten meters of ground colliding with Strait’s ears. “It’s in all the papers, the things they say. That I know everything, that I understand everything-” Sherlock pounded one fist against his chest because he could no longer keep so much pain close to his heart. “That I know so much I must not be human. But I am. I am a human being and as such I am a liar!” 

 

Straite’s aim faltered a little. 

Sherlock saw but ignored it, asking “And what do I know Rupert? What do I know? Nothing, I know nothing at all. I am betrayed by my mind. You say you know me...” Sherlock bit his lip so hard that Straite would swear the man was going to draw blood. “You say you do but...how can you know me when I. Do. Not. Understand!?” He sucked in a great shuddering breath. “And what am I going to do about it?” Sherlock asked. 

His legs were visibly shaking now and the tremor on his tongue was growing worse while his voice rose becoming anguished, demanding – needing! “What the hell am I supposed to do now?” Sherlock called out. “What? You tell me because I don’t know anymore.”

 

“What...Sherlock – Jesus...” Straite himself was now shaking a little. “I don’t...I don’t get what you’re talking about.” Uncertain what to do he just stared, frightened at the scene and the man who seemed to be crumbling right before his eyes. Was it the drugs? But he had never seen this reaction before. The great Sherlock Holmes was trembling, was falling apart. “Sherlock...talk to me. What the hell...?”

 

Sherlock sighed and suddenly grabbed his head, splaying the fingers of his right hand over the side of his skull. “Rupert I...I am not feeling very well.” He body was slipping now – crashing down hard from the drugs Straite had given him. The timing could not have been worse – and perhaps could not have been better.

 

Straite watched in horror as Sherlock suddenly crumpled to the pavement. Wiping a hand down his face - “Shit!” He was finally able to make his feet move and sidled over slowly, a little bit at a time, terrified that the detective might be dead. “Sherlock?” Straite whispered. “O-god-what-the-hell...Sherlock?”

 

XXX

Lestrade pulled his eyebrows together. “I’m not sure-“

Watson grabbed the Inspector’s hat from his desk and showed him. “Look! The insignia’s are Diamond shaped. The smell on the paper was from Axe which Sherlock knows you wear. And perhaps other officers wear it too? Maybe Straite wears it?”

Lestrade leaned back in his chair. “That’s pretty bloody weak John. That scrap of paper would blend in with my daughter’s sticker books too.”

“Maybe Straite is – I don’t know – after Sherlock? What if he’s some sort of obsessed fan? We know there are enough of them out there. Why not a policeman?”

“I suppose we could pay the chap a visit and see what he’s been up to? A nice friendly call.” Lestrade picked up his phone and spoke a set of instructions to Donovan. “And Sally, make damn sure you get inside to see that flat. Just make an excuse to the landlord if you have to. What sort? Don’t care as long as he believes it - right?”

Lestrade looked at John who nodded. He could swear he was right. Instinct? Maybe. But whatever it was...they reached Lestrade’s service vehicle and climbed in. Lestrade started the engine and they were off.

John’s phone vibrated for his attention and he opened it. On his screen was a tiny map of London and on the map was a small red flashing dot. “That’s weird.” He said and then looked over at Lestrade. “This is a GPS signal.”

Lestrade was instantly alert. “Who’s?”

“It’s Sherlock’s phone. He’s sent me his GPs coordinates.” 

Lestrade pressed the accelerator harder. “Can’t imagine that’s a good sign.” 

Lestrade called for another car and two more detectives, giving them their destination coordinates. “But hang back until I get there – got it?” After a few minutes on the road, his own phone rang. 

“Sir, this is Donovan.”

“We’re on our way somewhere Sally, what’s going on?”

XXX

Sergeant Donovan and a second officer stopped dead when they first saw what the flat contained. She held the phone to her ear and looked at the walls mutely. Then “Holy crap...”

She shook off the shock of finding what they had found and then spoke more clearly into her phone. “We’ve entered Strait’s flat sir. You should see this place. Wall to wall Sherlock Holmes. Straite must be some sort of Sherlock lovin’ crack-pot. I’ve never seen so many clippings. And photos, dozens of photos pasted everywhere.” Donovan shook her head at some of the more intimate collages. Straite had pasted cropped photo’s of Sherlock’s head on dozens of nude photos of other men...all carefully chosen as slim, fit men with complexions as white as the driven snow. “Jesus H. Christ...”

 

Lestrade barked in her ear. “Lock down the whole bloody place and get forensics over there right now.” Lestrade gave her a few further instructions and hung up, looking over at Watson. “Christ almighty...”

 

XXX

 

Straite finally got close enough to take a good look and was relieved to see the detective lying on his side, his arms disarranged and limp on the ground, but at least his eyes were open. He was blinking slowly, and still crying. 

A small sob escaped. “What am I supposed to do now?” Sherlock said in a voice as weak as a kitten, said as a man figuratively standing at the edge of his future and seeing that it was a bottomless hole in the earth. “What am I going to do now Rupert? I don’t have an answer for this.”

 

Straite wished like hell he did. “About what?” Straite bent down now, letting the gun fall away from Sherlock’s head, but still kept his hand gripped around it tightly. 

 

Sherlock could feel the spreading weakness had reached his arms now. He could hardly lift his head from the pavement. “No one understands what it’s like...” He whispered miserably, “no one...”

Straite licked his lips, and looked around him as though someone standing nearby might be able to shed light on what was happening. When he had seen Sherlock leave the ambulance behind while the medics shouted after him and followed, he had never anticipated this. He fully expected Sherlock to be combative, at first, maybe resistant to his wishes, but he had never imagined a situation like this. Sherlock ill –and now drugged thanks to his own mis-management. He must have filled the syringe too full - and Sherlock appeared to be getting worse. And on top of it he was somehow despairing which disturbed Straite greatly. 

“Tell me. Sherlock you can tell me you know. I won’t mock you, I’ll understand.” He said gently. “I understand you better than anyone - remember? I’ve followed you, learned about you...I understand you even better than him.” 

Slowly Sherlock shook his head side to side, squeezing his eyes shut as though to block out the painful world. “No you don’t...you can’t. Because...because...”

“Because what, love’? Oh God Sherlock - my poor baby - because of what?”

Trembling lips, pressed together tightly Sherlock whispered words raw from emotion “Because I don’t. I don’t. I don’t understand it and I should. I’m the one who is supposed to understand everything...”

“Understand what? Please tell me.” The gun was now a forgotten item in his hand, still there but now of almost no consequence. Straite could feel tears prickling at his own eyes in the face of the man’s distress. “Please tell me, oh please...”

“I ran from you.” Sherlock opened his eyes, wet with tears and looked up at his pursuer and Straite sucked in a breath at the naked honesty in them. So freely and deeply the perfect blue eyes looked up at him, so vulnerable, and so beautiful...

...so beautiful... 

Sherlock’s lip quivered. “When you spoke to me on the street, I ran away.”

Straite remembered with some sadness at the rejection he had suffered at Sherlock Holmes’s mouth. “I remember.”

 

Tears were running down from the corners of Sherlock’s eyes and accumulating in tiny puddles on the pavement. “I’m a genius they say...I-I’ve been told but...I don’t understand what it is...to love...it has defeated me...” He shut his eyes again at his own failure. “A thing I should understand, ought to without effort...to me it’s a mystery...I have no idea...no idea...” 

Straite felt his heart ache at the words. How did he not realise this? A man so perfect in face, body and intellect would have to be deficient somewhere. All animals were, and all humans. It suddenly all made so much more sense now. Everyone had a thing they failed at, even his exquisite Sherlock. And this was why they had been brought together. This was why! He would complete Sherlock. He, Rupert Straite, seemingly ordinary chap whom no one had ever thought of as special, would be the last and most important piece of Sherlock Holmes. They would fit together and complete each other. They would be the most perfect union ever devised by man or god. 

Straite, his excitement running high, his hands shaking at the revelation and from the powerful surge of love – a love unstoppable - that rose in his heart for this man, stuffed the gun in his pocket and took the detective’s face between gentle fingers. “My beautiful Sherlock, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. I really didn’t. If I had I would have come to you sooner. I would have tried harder. Maybe...maybe you don’t understand it but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn.” 

Straite swallowed the last of his trepidation and his fears dissipated like mist in the light; in the frosted light that was his lover’s beautiful, sorrowing, naked eyes. “I’ll teach you, Sherlock. I will. I love you more than anyone in this world could. I’ve loved you for years and years. So long-oh-god-so-long...” 

At the thought of Watson’s stupid rejection of the treasure in his arms a rush of intense jealousy and anger swam over him. How dare Watson treat Sherlock like that? How dare he? But then one look upon his lover’s lovely, lovely face and the anger faded just as quickly. He didn’t matter anymore. Watson was nobody now like everyone else. He didn’t matter in the least. “I don’t know what you saw in that mousy little doctor anyway. What’s so special about him that you ever loved him?”

Sherlock had his head turned to the side and was sobbing quietly now. “Doesn’t matter...he’s leaving me for her.” He whispered hoarsely. “Everyone always leaves me...I’m...ugly somewhere, somehow in my mind I’m ugly. I cannot see my way through it. Love is a maze and I’m lost inside it...it is inescapable...”

Straite brought his face to within inches of his distressed soon-to-be lover. “Oh baby, my sweet, beautiful Sherlock, I’ll stay with you. I’ll never leave you, never. Let me teach you, let me love you and you’ll understand everything.” 

Straite moved to kiss the pouting, moist lips but Sherlock’s hands feebly grabbed at him, clutching on weakly to his lapels. “Promise me.” He begged fiercely and using Straite for leverage raised his head and shoulders off the pavement as much as he was able and, though as weak as a kitten, shook him. “Promise me Rupert, that you’ll never leave me. I...I can’t take that again....I can’t be alone again...promise me. You have to promise.” Sherlock let go and collapsed back to the ground, absolutely spent now, hardly able to turn his head. “If you love me...please promise me Rupe-ert...” his said, his voice breaking like glass, as though his heart was shattering into a thousand pieces of it. “I beg of you...please...”

Straite sniffed again and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his jacket. “You’d really...you’d really go with me? This isn’t a trick?”

 

Sherlock wept openly now. “A trick?” He laughed, his whole body shaking. It was the laughter of the hopeless. “I am out of them...I am empty Rupert, so empty...please, God help me, I am empty...”

 

Straite bit his lip, so crushed was he to see his lover this way, so wanting to sooth him, to love him. He had so much love to give and he would give it all to Sherlock and none but Sherlock. “Oh God, I promise Sherlock, I swear to God I promise, I could never leave you...I love you. I love you so much...you have no idea...no idea...” He whispered seductively and again closed the gap between their lips.

But then stopped. Something hard was suddenly pressing against the back of his skull.

A commanding voice said “I think that’s a wrap Holmes. You oughta’ get an Academy for that performance.”

Sherlock dropped his arms to the pavement and breathed an enormous sigh of relief. “Thank you Inspector and what took you so long?”

Lestrade wrinkled his nose in amusement. “Oh I thought I might give this bloke a few more minutes to snog you up a bit. I know Donovan’d gotten a laugh outta’ it.”

With some difficulty Sherlock rolled away from Straite and sat up. He didn’t think trying to get to his feet would be a wise choice at that moment as his head was spinning and his heart pounding. “Don’t be an ass.”

Lestrade called over his shoulder “John, come see to ‘im. He doesn’t look so good.”

Watson hurried forward with Mary in tow and crouched down in front of Sherlock, checking his pulse. “Jesus Holmes, your heart is pounding like a base drum.” Then he checked his eyes. “Your pupils are dilated and generally you look like crap.”

“T’rific diagnostic skills Watson.” Sherlock quipped, taking a few deep breaths to calm his thumping heart. He could actually hear it. “Before I left our flat John I stole some of your anti-depressants from where you had habitually hid them in the sofa cushions-” He glanced up at Mary “Don’t worry, Mary, he’s been off them for some time now but as I saw there was ten or so pills left I swallowed them before the ambulance arrived.”

John looked at him like he was crazy. “Are you crazy? Do you know what mixing counter-indicative drugs can do to you? And in those doses?” 

Sherlock pursed his lips. “Mm...retard my reflexes and my circulatory system causing my heart to work doubly hard so the possibility of stroke or heart stoppage - yes, I am aware but I knew the anti-depressants would help to short-circuit anything Straite might choose to give me. Still I am not feeling very well.” He reached out a hand to Mary. “If you please...?”

Mary moved to assist but John shook his head at her. “Leave him right where he is. I’ve already called an ambulance and this time he is going into the hospital if I have to carry him there and strap him down myself.”

Sherlock glanced up at Mary quizzically. “Do you know you're dating a sadomasochist? How do you sleep at night?”

Mary gave her eyebrows a suggestive wiggle. “Well, hardly at all actually.” She noted that where a few weeks before Sherlock had seemed to welcome John’s touch, he did not appear to want it now. What had Straite done to him?

Lestrade was slapping cuffs on Straite while Straite only stared wide-eyed across the short expanse of pavement to his would-be lover. “I loved you.” He wailed. “I loved you! How could you do this?”

Sherlock looked at him calmly. “Fairly simply actually once I had shaken off the majority of the effects of the drugs you insisted I take. The rest was just acting which I happen to be very good at.” He held up his phone. “And how to send GSP coordinates to another phone by feel alone. I’m very skilled at that too.”

Straite fought the restraints and wailed. “You...you liar! You’re a bastard and a liar.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes at the spectacle. “Leave my mother out of this and not everything was a lie - I told you I was a liar – it was in fact the first thing I said.”

Straite looked a bit confused and Donovan piled the man into the rear seat of the police car.

Lestrade looked down at the detective. “How did you know he’d show up?”

“I didn’t but I knew if he was following me, and therefore the ambulance, if I could slip away he might show his face and confirm my suspicions.”

Watson looked pissed. “And not bothering telling anyone what you were up to. Risking your life again.”

Sherlock pulled his phone from his pocket. “I did tell you. Once I had confirmed it was Straite I sent my coordinates to your phone and here you all are.” Sherlock blinked, trying to shake off the cobwebs threatening to occlude his vision. “If we might continue this conversation in one of the cars, I’d like to get off this cold pavement.”

Once settled on the passenger seat of Lestrade’s car, Watson, standing beside his friend to keep a close eyes on him, asked “So what made you suspect Straite to begin with?”

“Approximately a week after Straite’s first visit to our flat my suspicions were awakened that someone was drugging me. But I was also clearly not in my right mind and I had no idea who at that point or what form of drug but as time went on and my episodes seemed to get worse other indications arose. For one, my attacker – the cab driver - was not trying to kill me. Watson so helpfully pointed out that fact to me at the start, a fact I noted but put aside at the time – a mistake as it turns out.”

“How was that a mistake?” Lestrade asked, “He wasn’t trying to kill you or you’d be dead.”

“Correct, but he was trying to injure me or, rather, not him but his passenger.”

Sherlock knew he had scored a point. “All this time I had not considered who might be in the passenger seat of the cab – undoubtedly the drugs clouding my judgement.”

“Undoubtedly.” Watson repeated. “So it was Rupert?” Watson said.

Sherlock nodded. “It was Rupert. Molly found signs of drugs in the cab driver’s tissues confirming my suspicion that the man had been influenced just as I eventually suspected I was being.” Sherlock flashed an apologetic look to Watson. “That is why I fought against drug screening and why I had to leave the ambulance Watson. I knew if the doctors found evidence of drugs in my system I would be made to stay in the hospital and my attacker would have been able to gain access to me easily there. Straite would no doubt have been recognised as a “friendly” by any other policeman posted at the door of my room and I would have been at his mercy.” 

Lestrade said “But Straite quit the force a couple weeks back.”

Sherlock nodded. ‘Yes, to better facilitate stalking me and finding opportunities to drug me and do as he pleased. I suspect each initial attack he used an instant anesthetic, probably a spray or a wipe. If you perform a thorough search of his flat you will find a collection of narcotics hidden there, probably evidence he lifted from an evidence locker fairly recently.”

“Forensics is searching his flat right now.”

Watson asked. “I’m sure we’ll find the injection sites he used with you are probably your scalp as well.” John wished Sherlock’ shad gotten infected the same as the cab driver’s. They might have thwarted their suspected abuser that much sooner and saved Sherlock multiple humiliations. “Still I wished you would have shared this with me. What makes you think we couldn’t have protected you?”

“Because I did not know specifically who my attacker was until just a few minutes ago. Just like me you would have had no idea who to protect me from.” Sherlock took a deep breath. “Back to the cafe’. In the milieu of the destruction we were all so focused on locating the cab driver we did not think that there might be a second person who fled the scene, the passenger Rupert Straite.”

Lestrade shoved his hands in his coat pockets. It was cold in the alley. “Why kill the first man then? The fat guy?”

Sherlock nodded. “No reason more complicated than to bring me to a crime scene where Straite could finally make my personal acquaintance and in addition stand back so he could enjoy watching me work up close. He arranged the clues that he knew I’d find. The square of paper with the cologne smell - the stink of which I have noticed is the choice spray of several policemen - the heart shape on the glass – a personal touch from Straite not only to confuse but on his part was also a subconscious declaration of love intended for me. 

“Straite befriended the fat man at a local pub, returned with him to his flat, drank with him, killed him and then ‘set the scene’ if you will, one that he knew would intrigue me; the heart drawn on the glass, the small square of paper smelling like Axe - a double clue – and the flat washed of fingerprints...all things which from his obsession with me he knew I would find difficult to resist.”

Watson asked. “Why try and injure you though, if he loves you the way he says he does...?”

Sherlock cleared his throat. “Two very good reasons - the ‘accident’ was to provide a plausible source for the concussion-like symptoms I was displaying – which symptoms convinced John and even me - for a time - that I was suffering from a brain injury. Watson nearly had me convinced that my brain had been damaged and thus my violent outbursts and my so-called delusions of being-” Sherlock paused and Watson swore the word he said next was not the word he had first intended –“interfered with were merely that – delusions. 

“They were, rather, very real indeed. Under the influence of the drugs I was confused as to their origin but getting lost, my memory lapses, Straite’s attempts to have sex with me, these were in fact all actual happenings.” Sherlock looked at John with eyes of apology. “Some of the more disturbing things I could not reveal to you, John. I was afraid you might attempt to have me committed and how would I find my attacker then? Plus once again I would be at his mercy.”

Lestrade nudged Watson’s leg with his boot. They both understood the things Sherlock was not saying. Straite had not merely availed himself of Sherlock’s drugged body, he had at least attempted at one time, and perhaps at others, to rape him. Watson felt sick realising that Straite had probably been busy molesting Sherlock that first visit right in his bedroom while he stayed in the kitchen washing dishes like a blind fool. 

 

And that second time when he had come home to Sherlock moaning in his sleep and then raging at John, frightened of him as though he was the attacker. Watson felt sick. “Oh Christ Sherlock...” He said “I’m so sorry.”

 

Sherlock shook his head, stopping him before he could get going. “Not your fault John. Do not concern yourself with it any further.”

Lestrade said “There was one thing you missed.”

Affronted Sherlock looked up at Lestrade standing over him, his arms resting on the rolled down window ledge, but it was not easy as the movement made his head ache. “Oh-pray-tell, Lestrade, what did I miss?”

John held out the evidence bag with the tiny piece of paper in it. “This square- it’s not a square. It’s a diamond and it is the exact same size and shape of the insignia on a policeman’s hat.”

Sherlock stared at it, a small frown betraying his irritation at missing the simple connection. “Ah, Straite’s way of playing ‘Guess Who?’. Well...” Sherlock cleared his throat, “I’m sure I would have come to the same conclusion sooner or later.”

John smiled a bit “Sooner or later.”

Sherlock stared at him coolly. “I have been a bit drugged up as of late John; you might give me a bit of slack.” His head swam. “Plus I really need to lie down now, or throw up. Either one would be good...”

Lestrade heard, finally, the sound of the ambulance a few blocks away. “The closer in, the farther away it seems you are - oh bloody hell!"

Watson thought that it applied equally to the case they had just resolved. “It would seem that way.” He said as Sherlock spilled his stomach all over Lestrade’s shoes.

XXX

Watson greeted Lestrade with a nod of his head as the Deputy Inspector took a seat beside him in the waiting room at The London. “They’ve using plasma pheresis to filter out as much of the drugs in his system as possible.” He explained. “He’s a bit out of it at the moment.”

Lestrade took a stick of gum from his pocket, un-wrapped it and put it in his mouth. He spoke while chewing. “And what about...that other stuff?” Lestrade asked, shifting in the hard plastic seat. “D’you think Sherlock was –er – well, interfered with?”

John’s mind supplied the unspoken word – raped. He shrugged his shoulders. “I tried talking to him about it and as usual he’s too stubborn to do that, not even with me.”

Lestrade didn’t blame the man. That’s hardly a conversation he would want to have with anyone either, friend or not. “How long do they figure ‘till they release him?”

John got why the man was asking. “Case?”

“Three bodies showed up overnight. They look a bit weird I’d say.”

John knew Sherlock would love that. “I don’t think he’s up to chasing down a murderer this week – physically I mean. Mentally he’s pretty much back to normal.”

Lestrade leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. It was already seven in the evening, it had been a long day and now he had reports to type before he could go home. “That Straite’s a nasty one. In his cell less than an hour and he’s pasting photos of Sherlock from the news-paper all over his walls. Keeps saying that if he can’t have Sherlock then no one will. Man’s bloody off his rocker. Thing is he seemed normal. Nothing was wrong with his work – bit of a loner as I recall but that’s it.”

“Well I for one am glad he’s behind bars for good.”

“Yeah.” Lestrade stood up and stretched. “Well, my day isn’t over yet. I’ve gotta’ write up a report and have my dinner at my desk again. What I’d really like is a couple of smokes and a pint with a head on it the size of a football.” He waved over his shoulder. “Give Sherlock my best will ya’?”

“Goodnight Inspector.” Watson watched the over-worked Inspector walk away down the brightly lit hall. 

“John -” Mary exited the elevator, nodding to Lestrade as she walked by the Inspector, and sat down beside him, kissing his cheek. “How’s Sherlock?”

“Much better I think. They’re keeping him here for another forty-eight hours just to be sure he’s all right.”

She looked toward the private room and back to John. “Do you think he’d mind if I popped in and said hello? I mean if he’s decent? He’s not being given a bath right now or anything?”

“I don’t think so, and I’m sure he’d be pleased to see you.” He stood and stretched. “I’ll fetch us a cuppa’.” He said.

Mary entered the room to find Sherlock awake and playing with his phone. She sat by the bed and quirked an eyebrow. “You know you’re not supposed to have that on?”

Sherlock’s fingers did not stop their dance across the small screen. “How else to shift the boredom that is their version of-” he made bunny-ear quotes in the air with his fingers “‘recovery’?”

Mary knew better than to push the issue. If the staff wanted him to comply then well, good luck to them. “Listen Sherlock-”

“-the answer is no.”

Her mouth was still open and she closed it. “Are you sure you know the question I was going to ask?”

“John would not have stayed outside if this were a mere ‘get well’ visit but here you are in my room alone therefore I deduced you wished to speak to me away from John’s hearing. And I know the question. It is the same question that has been on your mind since the day we first met at The Landmark.”

Mary glanced at her fingernails, bitten to the quick. “Well, are you?” She hurried to explain. “It doesn’t matter-”

He snorted. “-of course it matters.” He corrected, setting the phone aside. “You are engaged to marry him, perhaps even raise a family. Marriage is a promise for a life-time commitment – why legalities are ever brought into it is beyond me since so many people end up divorced. The legalities only complicate matters more because if one is a person of his or her word, no legalities are ever necessary, but back to your question at hand. This is no decision to take lightly and so you need to know...if it is real.”

Mary nodded. “I know I love John with all my heart, but-”

“But does he you?” Sherlock asked. “That is what you want to know.”

“Yes.” 

“And you want to know if I will be any influence one way or the other toward that end.”

She nodded. Her heart felt like it was sitting on the edge of her seat. “I mean-”

“The rumours – yes...” Sherlock finished for her. “Rumours, Mary. Rest assured they are nothing more.”

She felt a weight lift. “All right, good. So the rumours aren’t true but...”

This time Sherlock did not speak her next words. Instead he waited quietly while she formed them. 

She gave herself a moment so she could state them as accurate as possible for him. And she wanted to be kind, since it might be necessary. He was Sherlock but he did have a heart. She was certain of that and she believed that, if at all possible, all hearts ought to be treated as though they might shatter. All hearts could be broken.

“Do you..?” She asked and looked at him straight on. “Are you...in love with my fiancé? Are you in love with John?”

Sherlock turned his face from her and stared at the sheets crumpled in his lap. “Will my answer change the way you feel about John?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why ask?”

That made her think a bit. “I’m not sure.” She admitted honestly, “I guess I’d just like to...understand what it is I might be...breaking up.”

Sherlock nodded. “Ah, I see. So that you might feel at ease about it, I’ll give you an answer but I wish to know how sure you are that my answer will not alter your feelings toward John.”

“It won’t.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“How sure? Understand me, Mary, John may not be mine but I will take every and all steps necessary to ensure that he is not mistreated by anyone who claims to love him and by mistreated I mean lied to about that love. If you really love John and I can only assume you do, my answer will make no difference to you what-so-ever. If you do not really love John then my answer will make all the difference to you in the world and in that event he will surely get hurt. So I ask you again – how sure are you?”

“I would die for him, as I know you would.”

“Then you have your answer.” He said. “You do not need mine.” 

An answer that was an answer and yet no answer at all she thought. Trust Sherlock to pull it off. Mary sat back as though struck by the thought, one too heavy to hold upright. She knew she was right even though she did not know how she knew. “My god, you do love him. I mean, you are in love, aren’t you?” 

Sherlock sighed. “Well something must be held to account for this insanity.” He finally admitted with a touch of humour. Useless to hide it from Mary. She was a clever woman. John could certainly do worse, and with most of his former girlfriends, often had. “How do you put up with it? How do you endure this endless mash of conflicting emotions without going mad?”

She shrugged, feeling odd that she felt actually relieved to have heard what she had just heard. “Well, you don’t really. Love is a kind of insanity don’t you think?”

A small puff of air from his nose served as a tiny chuckle. “I suppose it is.” His brows drew together. “I’m not much fond of it. It makes me feel-”

“As though you were grieving?” She offered, sounding like a woman of experience.

Sherlock looked over at her with some respect. “Yes.” 

“Love is only part of what you’ve been feeling Sherlock, the rest is unrequited love.”

“Well it sucks.” 

Mary laughed. “Well it’s supposed to.” She stood up and leaned over him. He drew back as though he was worried she might punch him in the nose.

Instead she kissed him on the forehead. “Thank you Sherlock.” She walked to the door and then looked back deciding to share what she thought would help. “And John may be marrying me,” She explained “but it’s not really unrequited.” She said, “Not where it really counts anyway.”

Sherlock tilted his head, not sure if he believed her. “Are you saying John loves me as much as he loves you?”

“Yes, only without the sex.”

“Without the sex, yes, thank you, it’s possible I might not have been noticing that bit.”

“Smart ass,” she smiled warmly. Things were going to be all right. Maybe for the first time since Sherlock came back from the dead, things were going to be fine. “You really do love him, don’t you?” Screw all the idiots who thought Sherlock Holmes inhuman and incapable of it. John had told her of many of his exploits with the detective, how he had saved John’s life many times and had welcomed him into his home after knowing him for only a few hours and so many other things he had done that people who did not love would never do. As far as she could see, Sherlock knew better than most how to love someone. “Be honest with me just this one time and I swear I’ll never mention it again. You have my word.” Her word was good. She knew he knew that. 

Sherlock picked up his phone again and started playing with it “Don’t be stupid Mary,” he said, “of course I do.”

XXX

John descended the stairs of his shared flat at 221b Baker Street for the last time, at least as one of its occupants.

“Oh John-”

He turned to see Misses Hudson approach. Her eyes fell on his suitcase. “Oh, you’re off then?”

John pressed his lips together. “Yes, this is the last of it.” He said, glancing down at the beige case in his hands. “Mary’s waiting for me.”

Misses Hudson’s smile faltered a bit. “John,” She began and her tone was kind, too kind and John prepared himself to endure whatever sentimental words of farewell she was about to say. “Misses Hudson, this is not a final goodbye. You know I’ll be around a lot. Sherlock and I will still be working on cases together...”

She clasped her hands together, her arms bent at the elbow and nodded. ‘Oh I know, I know. Nothing could keep you from that but still...” she tilted her head “you know how much I like Mary, don’t you? She’s a lovely girl and you have my blessings.”

“Of course, yes, of course I do.”

She nodded. “Good, but it’s just that, I think it’s so sad that things didn’t work out between you and Sherlock. You seemed so...well, so good together. I know Sherlock can be a trial but he always was closed-off about that sort of thing anyway. But with you he came out of his shell, and he tried you know, he really tried very hard...”

John raised his eyebrows. “Misses Hudson, there never was going to be me and Sherlock...er...‘together’. We are friends - that’s all. Good friends, best friends, but still just friends.”

Misses Hudson looked slightly confused. “Oh but I thought, that is I felt sure he would have...you know...said something.”

John smiled patiently. “I am not in love with Sherlock and he is not in love with me, Misses Hudson. I’m not sure where this rumour began but let me put an end to it. I am his best friend and that’s all. I’m sorry but anything else you’ve heard or thought you heard is just wrong.”

John kissed her cheek goodbye and closed the outer door after himself.

 

Sadly Misses Hudson watched him go. She was alone in the foyer. “Sherlock is right. John sees right enough... 

 

“But he really doesn’t observe.”

 

XXXXX

I know the thing between Mycroft and John is not yet resolved but the sequel coming up. 

Watch for it - “The Dancing Man”


End file.
